


Picture Show Project

by novel_concept26



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-01
Updated: 2012-05-20
Packaged: 2017-11-06 15:12:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 36,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novel_concept26/pseuds/novel_concept26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s something strange about the way Santana edges the door shut, only the barest sliver of light peeking through to the bedroom. Santana never used to close doors around her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. (Forget What You Heard About Modern Love) She's Still In The Mirror, Honey, Fixin' Her Mug

Title: (Forget What You Heard About Modern Love) She's Still In The Mirror, Honey, Fixin' Her Mug  
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce  
Rating: R  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: None in particular.  
Summary: There’s something strange about the way Santana edges the door shut, only the barest sliver of light peeking through to the bedroom. Santana never used to close doors around her.  
A/N: [Picture Show 1/14]-["Moving In The Dark"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZoYJ5vG6f0)

  
_Bubblegum lipstick, baby’s got me nervous,  
Something’s got a hold of my feet  
You just wanna go where your problems won’t follow—  
Baby, that’s okay with me_

Santana spends a lot of time in the bathroom when they do this. At first, Brittany thought it was a vanity thing: keeping her makeup perfectly applied, adjusting her hair for half an hour. Stay pretty, stay sexy, stay Santana. That made sense.

Santana’s pretty easy to make sense of, after all this time—mostly. Except, sitting perched like this on the edge of the pitch-dark comforter, her hands wound between her knees, Brittany can’t help but wonder. There’s something strange about the way Santana edges the door shut, only the barest sliver of light peeking through to the bedroom. Santana never used to close doors around her.

Then again, they never used to fall into bed together like this, either. Things change. And, given how fast her heart is charging beneath her shirt, she thinks change might not be so bad.

When Santana finally, _finally_ emerges, every last inch of her is perfection: eyelashes, lip gloss, the whole she-bang. She’s beautiful, a walking work of art, and it makes Brittany’s breath catch in her throat—but it’s wrong. Somehow, under the instinctive desire to sit up straighter and drink in the paint and perfection, she can sense it. Something about this just doesn’t quite feel right.

She couldn’t pin it down before, but now, watching Santana slink into the room like a slender jungle cat, she thinks she knows: this, this beautiful concoction creeping across the carpet wearing a smirk that could stop an army in its tracks—this _isn’t_ Santana.

Not the Santana Brittany wants, anyway.

Even as she watches Santana move, strong legs swinging up over Brittany’s lap, fingertips finding the base of Brittany’s neck, she knows this isn’t for her. This display, this strange little game Santana plays with herself before they rev up and really get going…Brittany thinks it hasn’t _ever_ been for her. Not really. Because she’s known Santana almost her whole life, has seen every grass stain, and sprained wrist, and cake-battered t-shirt. She has kissed bruises and wiped tears, and never once has it felt like Santana needed to be someone else. Not with her.

But then they started _this_ —the sleeping together that isn’t _just_ sleeping together—and something inside Santana seemed to shift. Just a little, maybe not enough so anyone else would notice, but Brittany can’t seem to see anything else. With Santana moving on top of her, back arching, breasts pressing temptingly forward, Brittany can’t breathe. Her hips give a little jolt, her hands anchoring against the small of Santana’s back. This is so _not_ who they were.

It feels, when Santana does this, like she’s running from something. Hiding behind layers of makeup, behind sexy, throaty words that send endless shivers down Brittany’s spine. Like she’s actually _pretending_ to be somebody else, someone the mirror might like more than Brittany ever could. Like she needs to be someone Brittany doesn’t already know.

Which is stupid, because Brittany can’t imagine ever wanting anyone who isn’t her best friend.

She remembers the first time they did this, and how different it felt. How different Santana was, when she wasn’t trying too hard, when she didn’t have anything to prove. Laying sprawled together in this same bed, sun-kissed legs bumping awkwardly close, feeling the bare brush of Santana’s index finger as it traced across her forehead, her cheekbone, her upper lip. The sight of Santana’s hair, pulled back from her face with a stretched-out rubber band. The too-close, hazy-in-the-summertime image of Santana’s face just being _Santana’s face_ —no makeup, no additions, no extra effort. It was July, then, and sticky-hot, a time for shorts with holes in the pockets and tank tops that might be a little too short around the hem. It was warm, and confusing, and Brittany still remembers the way her blood pounded in her ears when Santana’s hand wrapped around her own, pulling the knuckles softly against chapped lips. It’s hard to forget a thing like that, a feeling that ties her stomach all up in knots when they aren’t doing anything at all, when they’re sitting side by side in some stupid class, and Santana’s arm brushes hers just right.

She remembers the way Santana looked at her then, confident and terrified all at the same time. The way Santana’s head bent in, scooting across the pillow so slowly, Brittany was sure she’d never make it all the way over. She remembers the way Santana thumbed her lip, sticking and pulling just a little, until Brittany wanted nothing more than to lick the foreign presence resting against her mouth.

She remembers the heat of Santana’s palm, moving hesitantly, hovering in the air just above her hip. Santana’s nose, soft as it bumped her own. Santana’s fingers curling around the place where shorts and shirt didn’t quite match up. The brief tug that brought them face to face, chest to chest, hips meeting hips with a solid little thump that made Brittany gasp, and then feel almost embarrassed, because Santana was smiling like she knew something Brittany didn’t. Santana has always had that smile, for as long as Brittany can remember: a secret smile, like she’s holding something against her chest that Brittany will never quite be able to see, no matter how she cranes her neck.

She remembers the gently insistent way Santana’s breasts pushed against her own, Santana’s hand combing down the side of her face and pausing, cupping her jaw, thumb trailing in the direction of her ear. The way Santana’s lips tasted—not the first time, but somehow mad and new all the same. The smell of Santana’s hair as she wound her fingers in that damp dark ponytail, the breath of Santana’s sigh when her lips parted upon Brittany’s. The bump, again, of hips clumsily meeting hips—a motion Brittany had never felt before then, unless they were dancing. A motion Brittany wasn’t sure how to put into words in that moment.

She thinks of it now, how different this has become in the times since. Santana’s lips devour hers, fast and aggressive and beautiful in their own right, and Brittany can’t help but move in turn. Can’t help but twist her tongue in retaliation, waging a silent battle neither of them could ever hope to win. She doesn’t think winning is the point, anyway—doesn’t think it ever has been, no matter who Santana is trying so desperately to be—and the game _is_ fun. Different, but fun. Kissing Santana could never be anything but.

The images flash together in her mind, bound by a single thin string: before and after, then and now, Santana’s confidence and Santana’s desperation. The taste is the same, but the weight is so different, surprising her at every turn. Santana’s head angles, her mouth open and hot, the little moans vibrating through and through as Brittany’s hand flexes against the nape of her neck. She remembers it differently, that first time. Same touch, same aim, but the moan was different. Surprised, not fiery. Like Santana had never expected Brittany to kiss back the way she did, or wrap an arm around her waist, or hike her hips forward with _that_ kind of zeal. Like Santana hadn’t expected Brittany to want it the way Santana did.

Sometimes, Brittany thinks _Santana_ thinks she only does things because Santana wants to do them. Like Brittany is just following along, matching the steps Santana sets, the pace Santana builds for them. When, really, it just so happens that Santana got there first. Santana almost always does.

And Brittany lets her, because what happens when that day finally comes—the one where _Brittany_ steps first, twirls first, kisses first? What happens if she does it, and finds Santana staring with such uncertainty back at her?

She waits for Santana because Santana sometimes needs to do things differently. Because Santana sometimes needs to take her time. Because it feels, more and more often lately, like Santana is trying so hard to outrun something Brittany can’t even _see_.

She bites down on Santana’s lip, relishing the whimper, and thinks about how she never would have thought to try that the first time. With Santana’s hands, growing nervous, pushing her shirt up over her head. With Santana’s eyes asking silent questions, her head tilting as if to say, _Stop or go? Red light or green?_

It was always green. Santana should have known that, but maybe she didn’t. Maybe Santana doesn’t always know as much as she thinks.

It was different then, with Santana slowly rolling Brittany onto her back, carefully climbing on top, holding herself aloft on shaking arms. Cautious. Protective. It was different than this, than Santana grinding her pelvis against Brittany’s, pushing back until they land in a heap upon the mattress. Different than now, with Santana’s hips churning a salsa rhythm, with Santana’s nails clawing against her scalp. Santana was so soft then, so gentle, so clumsy: one pump of her hips, and then stop, wait, look both ways. Make sure the coast is clear.

And Brittany—Brittany’s different now, too. Laying there with goosebumps running races up and down bared skin, with her whole body trembling as Santana laid herself cautiously down, elbows framing Brittany’s head against the pillow. Mouths pressing once, twice, pausing here and there to giggle, to shake off the nerves. Her hands, so much smaller then, so unaware of how easy it would become to embrace all of Santana at once. Back then, her hands couldn’t begin to hold all that Santana had to give.

She used to stay so still, so afraid that one wrong move would send Santana leaping away, hands pushing her hair back into place as she wished the whole thing into a dream. She used to move so slowly, guiding Santana’s shirt up over her stomach, her ribs, her breasts, fingers trailing back down over the expanse of slim shoulders, a long spine. She used to feel out every breath, every sound, piece by piece.

She moves now, with a friction that can’t even _begin_ to match what Santana offers. Hands roam free, mouths skirting and slipping. Careless. Crazy. Santana, wrapped around her hips, shirt in the corner somewhere, jeans pushing down against jeans until it hurts to move, hurts to be confined in material so tight. Santana, with wild hair and wilder eyes, tongue raking and arcing across her bared throat, soothing the ache of a bite to the collarbone. Santana, who pushes and _needs_ Brittany to push back.

They move now the way they couldn’t then, the way they never imagined they would. A constant call and response: Santana’s growl, Brittany’s scratches, buttons popping, zippers snarling. No longer soft and sweet, no longer careful and terrified. Brittany thinks they _need_ this now, although maybe for different reasons. Maybe for reasons that she can’t quite bring herself to look at.

Santana now, the Santana Brittany can flip over and rock heatedly against, is not the Santana then. Santana, with her fruit-flavored lip gloss and her filthy commands, looks _nothing_ like the Santana who once eased the shorts down Brittany’s long legs and then paused, head tilted, lips parted as she stared. As she learned. Santana, who groans and spreads her legs for Brittany to press her hand between, who shuts her eyes so tightly and bows her head back almost hard enough to strike the wall, is the dead opposite of the girl who gently, nervously, slid a finger down Brittany’s midsection and lower, barely touching, barely daring.

It used to be different, she thinks as she sinks two fingers deep and slides back out again. It used to be different, that first time.

The summer heat, trickling down into that basement room. The aching sweetness of Santana’s forehead against her shoulder, the pant of Santana’s shallow breaths as the muscles in her arm strained and burned. The graceless way Santana’s mouth would open against her skin, words tumbling out without meaning as she touched, and traced, and slowly taught herself the art of making someone come undone.

It’s different now, with Santana kissing her this way—hot and fresh and fierce as any lioness. It’s different, the way Santana’s hips lift to meet her hand, the way Santana’s fists clench in the bedspread, in Brittany’s hair, nails stark red against the dark blankets. It’s different, how Santana strives to take her deeper, never wincing, never waiting, only begging for more.

As Brittany thrusts, half-frantic, in time with the strokes of Santana’s breath, she thinks this is maybe what growing up looks like. Wild. Hot. Desperate around the edges. Maybe this is what they were always meant to build to.

One thing that never changes is _this_ moment, when she strikes a nerve way down deep, when some blend of her mouth and her fingers charge Santana up to her breaking point. When Santana grabs hold of her face, crashing their lips together with a force all her own, and gasps her name until it rebounds off the back of Brittany’s tongue. _Her_ name, always. First time, last time, it never matters—it will always be _her_ name Santana is whispering.

Santana is different now, than she used to be. Santana wears makeup to bed, and digs her nails into Brittany’s back until it screams, and rides them both to exhaustion. Santana spends so much time getting ready now, like she’s gearing up for something huge, something she can’t handle on her own. Santana is a work of art, playing out her part the only way she seems to know how.

Santana is running from something Brittany can’t begin to imagine, and she knows it _should_ bother her—but who is she, to tell Santana not to be afraid? What right does she have, to denounce monsters she doesn’t even believe in? The best she can do, she knows, is to let Santana lead where she will, and to follow with the promise that, maybe, for these too-short, scorching moments, whatever problems Santana is racing from will fade away.

If Santana needs the mirror for that, a tube of lip gloss, a madness Brittany can’t wrap her head around—who is she to demand anything else? They burn, brighter than she ever could have _dreamed_ on that first broiling afternoon. They spark, and they shatter, and when it all ends, it is in _her_ arms Santana can be found. Maybe it’s not the Santana she remembers, but maybe that’s okay. Everyone has to grow up sometime.

At least, she assures herself as Santana curls, naked and half-dozing, against her chest, at least they’re doing this together. Together, the darkness can't rise up as high, can't overwhelm them the way Santana seems to fear so badly. Disguises, fears, memories aside, maybe that’s the part that counts.

And maybe, if they do it long enough, there will come a day when that bathroom mirror can’t give Santana what Brittany has to offer. Things change.

Who is she to say?  



	2. To All The Cool Kids On My Block (Where’s The Original Thought?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every once in a while, she stops just long enough to ask herself: _Why the fuck am I doing this?_

Title: To All The Cool Kids On My Block (Where’s The Original Thought?)  
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: None in particular.  
Summary: Every once in a while, she stops just long enough to ask herself: _Why the fuck am I doing this?_  
A/N: [Picture Show 2/14]-"[Teenage Sounds](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7eIUskePGY)"

  
_I’m tired of girls, I’m tired of boys, I’m tired of nonsense  
I’m t-t-t-t-t-tired of the process  
I’m sick and tired of always feeling second best  
I’m tired of never ever making any progress_

It gets old. The whole thing, the dancing around in the snow, making sure to only step in ready-made boot tracks. It gets so _fucking_ old, and she’s only been at it for two years. The same song, the same dance, the same prancing idiotic game everyone else is playing, and every once in a while, she stops just long enough to ask herself:

_Why the fuck am I doing this?_

The answer comes easy enough, as it always has: she has to. The things she wants, the things she _needs_ out of life? They don’t come to those who wait. Or those who stand still. Or those who play nice. Recognition, respect, fame, even out-and-out adoration—these belong to the rich and the powerful for a reason. And, in high school, the rich and powerful just happen to wear uniforms.

And do air splits.

Hey, it’s not a thirty-thou-a-week day job, but it’s a start.

She wouldn’t get what she wants by sitting around in jeans and a t-shirt, scribbling down notes in class and dutifully pushing senior citizens around after school. Maybe it would be _easier_ , but it wouldn’t get her anywhere near where she needs to be. She can’t excuse letting it all go just for _easy_.

But it gets old. It gets fucking exhausting. Strutting around campus, pushing everybody’s buttons, laying hard truths on the table. They hate her for it. Hate her, or want to fuck her senseless, and sometimes, it’s hard to tell which part is worse. The thing is, she wouldn’t mind if it was for some honest reason, some true interest in her personality, but—

But hardy-har, that sort of shit doesn’t fly in a high school arena. _Personality_ means jack-all when you’re up against fucking Quinn Fabray.

Quinn, who is so pretty, and so smart, and so _disgustingly_ well-loved by the people around them. If love is synonymous with fear, Quinn’s got it in spades, and it's the only reason Santana is half as successful as she is. Which, naturally, leads to bowing, scraping gratitude to Quinn’s girl-next-door charm bottled in a Daddy-buys-the-best body. To Quinn’s uncomfortably strong devotion to the things she wants. To Quinn, and every little thing she embodies about the Midwestern high school experience.

Quinn is supposedly her best friend.

She fucking hates Quinn.

It’s agonizing, how she’s expected to dart from footprint to footprint in Quinn’s wake, never pausing long enough to cut a tread of her very own. It’s unimaginably boring, tracing over Quinn’s shadow again and again as she does the same old shit each and every week. Pick on Rachel Berry. Fake a smile at the football team. Nuzzle Finn Hudson’s dopey cheek. Glare at Noah Puckerman. Hand in the homework on time, ace the tests, stand tall at the tippy-top of that fucking pyramid. Rinse, repeat.

Santana does at least as much of the same work Quinn is regularly ass-kissed for, and for what? So she can watch _her_ boyfriend moon around after Quinn’s idiot good-girl routine?

To be fair, she doesn’t particularly give a shit what Puckerman sinks his dick into, but something about the way he stares at Quinn gets under her skin. Not because she _cares_ , because—seriously—she’s so much better than that shit. Not even because it’s _Quinn_ , no matter how sick to death she is of coming in second to that whiny little Jesus freak. No, there’s something else about the way Puck’s eyes linger a little too long—not on Quinn’s ass, but on her eyes—that makes her want to puke her guts all over the goddamn football field.

She can’t quite place it, can’t quite put a name to it, but if she _had_ to—gun to her head, no other option—she thinks she might call it…

Fuck, is Puckerman actually _in love_ with Quinn fucking Fabray?

The sheer pathetic vibe aside, there is something so wrong about that idea that she can’t shake it off. Puckerman? _Her_ Puckerman, the caveman she puts up with day in and day out? The idiot who spotted her one day in the parking lot and left her no choice, the one she complains about getting saddled with after Quinn got first pick of the football litter—although, be honest: as much of a dipshit as Puckerman has always been, he is _worlds_ better than that idiot Hudson.

_Lightyears._

And now Quinn’s going to snag him, too.

Not that, again, she _cares_. Caring about losing Puck would mean caring about _having_ him in the first place, and good Christ, no. Nothing is more laughable than that, except maybe the fact that Quinn still manages to convince everyone on this campus that she’s a _good girl_ , after all the shit she’s pulled. No, she doesn’t give a flying rat’s ass about Puckerman walking out the door, or even walking after Quinn, but—

Walking out for _love_?

Man, fuck love.

Love is stupid, and ridiculous, and who falls in love at fifteen _anyway_? More importantly, who falls in love with someone when they know without a doubt that it’s just never going to work? Like Quinn would _ever_ give Puck the time of day. Like she could _ever_ tear herself away from Finn Hudson’s galumphing ass long enough to even _look_ at Puck—really look at him. Like that’s ever going to happen.

It’s a colossal waste of time and energy, and yet, she sees him slipping away. She sees the way his eyes dart, his hands twitching almost nervously against the legs of his three-days-past-washing jeans. This isn’t like Puck—the Puck _she_ knows, the one who plays video games, and swears, and spits, and fucks like an animal. It’s a Puck-drone, a pod-person, placed here strictly to induce her goddamn gag reflex. It’s revolting.

And yet, here they are.

Love is stupid, she reminds herself, turning away from him now. It’s stupid, and it’s weak, and any top dog worth her salt should know it. God knows, _she’ll_ never have to worry about that weepy-ass emotion getting the best of her. Love is for the whipped.

“Whatcha doing?” a voice chirps in her ear. Santana jumps, her knee thumping the underside of the lunch table. Brittany laughs, draping both arms around her shoulders from behind and leaning into her back.

“Where’ve you been?” It’s a little harsher than she meant it, but fuck; she’s so tired of all of this, it’s a wonder she hasn’t actually stabbed somebody today. Yet.

Anyway, Brittany knows to take her in stride. It didn’t take long at all to learn that trick. Brittany’s a hell of a lot quicker than people give her credit for.

“Retake,” she says cheerily, which Santana takes to mean, _I didn’t show up for the test the first time around, and this time, I drew a lot of penguins._ That’s Brittany, and, God help her, Santana loves it. No one else in this school could get away with drawing _penguins_ on a test with so little backlash.

“You’re not eating,” Brittany adds when she says nothing. Santana can’t find the words to admit how _not hungry_ all this crap has made her. Puckerman, staring off into space like the lunkhead he is. Quinn, twirling for her royal court not two tables away. And all the while, Santana sits: super-hot, super-angry furniture.

She fucking hates being furniture.

“C’mon,” she hisses, pushing off from the table and grasping Brittany’s hand. She doesn’t need to pull hard; Brittany will follow, no matter where she goes. It’s one of the best things about her. Sometimes, Santana thinks Brittany the only person in this school who really _sees_ how great Santana is.

Which is sad, because Santana is fucking awesome. Santana can dance—maybe not the way Brittany can, but pretty damn well—and run circles around the idiots in her classes even on the most difficult material. Santana can bite harder, and yell louder, and kiss hotter. Fuck it; Santana can _sing_.

Not that she tells anybody about that, except for Brittany, because Brittany’s the only person who wouldn’t immediately try to elbow her into the goddamn _Glee Club_.

Fact is, everyone else in this school wants something: to be popular, to be famous, to be _remembered_. And do any of them deserve it?

Does Hudson, for throwing a football passably well once every four games?

Does Puckerman, for sleeping his way through the PTA?

Does Quinn, for being _pretty_?

Fuck, no. And she’s sick and tired of hearing about it, too. All these empty-headed idiots, going on and on about how everybody is going to be _so_ great, and _so_ rich, and _so_ amazing, just as soon as they get out of this school. Fuck that shit. None of them have done a damn thing to earn it.

Nobody sees her for what she is.

Brittany doesn’t ask where they’re going, or why, and when they reach the abandoned classroom at the end of the hall—the one where they used to teach art, back before art classes were cut to make room for weight-lifting—it’s all Santana can do not to lose it. She sucks in a breath, steadying herself, and latches the door.

Brittany, leaning against the dusty teacher’s desk, waits.

“I hate them,” Santana mutters, and she can tell from the expression on her best friend’s face that Brittany doesn’t quite hear her. Can’t quite make out the words. Can’t quite understand.

That’s okay. Nobody really can. Nobody gets it, but at least Brittany is _here_. Not mooning around after their cheer captain, not flouncing through a field of admirers. Here. With Santana, looking like there’s nowhere else in the world she’d rather be.

Santana surges into her arms before she knows what she’s doing, her mouth finding Brittany’s with an intensity they usually reserve for safer places. Dumb to do it here—look how well it went _last_ time—but Brittany shrugs it off. That's another great thing about Brittany, the knowledge that she will never just push Santana away. She will never ask why they’re doing this, or demand that they stop to talk. Brittany knows her better than that.

She’s so sick of everything, so absolutely _done_ with the bullshit, and it feels—like days of this idiotic caliber always do—like Brittany can make it better. Like the sensation of Brittany’s hands sliding down her back, Brittany pulling her to rest between long, toned legs, Brittany’s lips parting to allow Santana just as much control as she needs—like this is everything the rest of the world is missing. It feels, pushing forward against Brittany’s chest, angling her chin up and claiming a fistful of the red-and-white material at her hip, like _this_ is what she spends her days waiting for. Like _this_ is the one thing that makes coming to school and listening to all the stupid shit, being overlooked again and again, worth it.

Brittany never overlooks her. Brittany never forgets she’s here. Brittany never demands answers, or tells her she isn’t working hard enough, or that she just doesn’t want it enough. Brittany, for all the crazy things she does and says, never sounds _stupid_ , or _selfish_ , the way everyone else seems to. Brittany just leans back against this desk, palm braced against Santana’s arched spine, and lets go.

Santana wishes she knew how to do the same.

Brittany always seems so happy, so ready for anything, and sometimes, Santana thinks that would be better. To be _that_ beautiful, and _that_ talented, and not claw her way to the top. To just…be. To not feel like proving something to the people they won’t give two shits about a couple of years from now.

She doesn’t know what it feels like, not to care what other people think.

That's sort of what got them here in the first place.

What she does know is how _this_ feels: skating away on Brittany’s kiss, letting it carry her far above the rest of the bullshit the day will bring. The taste of Brittany’s laughter on her tongue, the echo of Brittany’s fingers tracing the shell of her ear, pushing strands of hair back. She knows, in these stolen moments, how it feels to be the center of someone’s attention in a way this school never seems able to give.

Brittany doesn’t think twice about it. That’s just how Brittany is.

Santana sometimes thinks Brittany is the greatest human being on earth.

They break for air when the bell chimes and pause, Brittany’s hands warm and strong, Santana’s buried in thick blonde hair. It doesn’t make everything better, she knows. She’ll just have to walk right back out that door, right back into the role and the game and the _stupid_ that’s waiting for her. She knows that.

“I’m not getting anywhere,” she mumbles, close enough to Brittany that the words wind up muffled against flushed pink lips. “It’s all so stupid.”

“Yeah,” Brittany agrees, leaning back and giving Santana’s chin a gentle bop. “But you’re awesome.”

“The most awesome,” Santana all but laughs, her chest swelling with the knowledge that Brittany, at least, actually believes it. Because Brittany is amazing, and perfect, and—

Well. Her best friend in the world.

And if anybody’s going to be able to see the truth—who she really is, how hard she really works, how badly her _awesome_ kicks Quinn Fabray in the proverbial balls—it’s going to be Brittany. Because Brittany is there when no one else is. And Santana really, really lo—

Brittany is grinning at her, that grin that tells Santana she’s moving too slow, spending too much time in her head. She can’t resist grinning back.

These people are idiots. This _school_ is stupid. The expectations, the fact that she is forever following Quinn Fabray, or dishing out exactly what Puckerman wants, or nodding her head mindlessly along to Coach Sylvester’s commands—she hates it sometimes. She’s better than all of them. She and Brittany, hand in hand, could bring this whole mountain down.

But it’s too early for that. There’s still time. She’s still so new to this whole high school drama piece.

In time, she is going to wipe the floor with each and every one of them. Until then, she’ll do what needs to be done. And when things get too heavy, there’s always Brittany to fall back on, Brittany for release.

Brittany makes the whole process shockingly tolerable. Santana likes to think that’s what best friends are for. And fuck everything else—the boys, the other cheerleaders, the dickhead teachers—because, when it comes to best friends, she easily has the best one out there.

Everything else will fall into place—someday.  
  



	3. Everybody Talks, Everybody Talks (Too Much)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you can keep a secret, it makes you into something they can't quite touch.

Title: Everybody Talks, Everybody Talks (Too Much)  
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: None.  
Summary: If you can keep a secret, it makes you into something they can't quite touch.  
A/N: [Picture Show 3/14]-"[Everybody Talks](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psdJcrNda84&feature=related)"

_Never thought I’d live to see the day  
When everybody’s words got in the way_

It started in secret, the way so many of the best things do, and for a while, that was kind of awesome. Secrets have this amazing power, the ability to make you feel stronger than you are, smarter than the rest of the world believes. If you can keep a secret, it makes you into something they can’t quite touch, because even if they beat at you, make you feel like a real loser, they can never get at that thing that you—and only you—know. The thing that makes you special, because it belongs to you and to nobody else.

To you, and to Santana.

You and Santana have kept a lot of secrets over the years—usually from parents, and snooping little sisters, and sometimes—when he’s been bad—Lord T. You and Santana are _good_ at keeping secrets, the way nobody quite expects, because you talk _all the time_. And not in a made-up language or anything, like the way Tina and Artie sometimes whisper in backwards syllables on the bus ride to school, because Santana says you’re cooler than them. You’ve _always_ been cooler than them. You take that to heart, snuggle it close at bedtime. It makes you feel warm, the idea that Santana thinks you’re cool.

So, okay, it was a secret, and it belonged to you, and to Santana, and to the trust built up between you, and that was cool. That was comfortable, like a pair of old pajamas, the kind your mom is always trying to slip out of your bottom drawer and sneak into a trash bag. But you always catch her, because those are your _favorites_ , and how are you supposed to get to sleep at night if your pajamas aren’t keeping you toasty and safe?

Santana’s kind of like that, a pair of toasty-safe pajamas—the pair your mom is always sneakily trying to get rid of. Because, even though your mom assures you she _likes_ Santana, _sure, of course_ , you’re pretty sure she wishes you would spend more time with your little sister. Or with Lucy Fabray, a few blocks away. Or with Lord T.

But Lord T always wants to play the same games over and over, and Santana is fast, and smart, and funny. Plus, Santana is much, much prettier than T ever could hope to be—sorry, Mom says the truth hurts—and you like to think hanging out with someone _that_ pretty can only do great things for your own reflection. It’s working already; you can see your limbs lengthening, feel the itch of a brand-new bravery building up in your stomach. It’s the kind of bravery you never knew, before Santana.

Bravery leads to trying new things, you found out, and new things are fun. But, sometimes, it’s the kind of fun you’re not supposed to talk about. According to Santana, that can be the best kind of fun out there—as long as you don’t break the rules.

“The rules,” as far as you can tell, are very simple. _No one can know_. Not now, not next week—not ever. Doesn’t matter who, doesn’t matter how bad you want to tell, or how your lungs seem to be struggling under the new weight of something so exciting— _you just can’t._

“Why?” you ask only once, the first time it happens, and Santana gives you that look she reserves for people who make her head hurt.

“Because,” she says simply, “they’ll make us stop.”

You don’t see how that could be possible, how anybody out there—not even God, or Superman, or Harry Potter—could be enough to make you stop the secret. Because what you’re doing doesn’t feel like something that’s _bad_ , or _wrong_ , or _scary_. (Okay, maybe the scary part, a little, but in a rushing-down-a-roller-coaster-screaming kind of way.) What you’re doing doesn’t feel like something anybody should even care about, so why would they ever try to make you stop?

You want to argue the point for a while, but Santana’s picking at the carpet fuzzies faster and faster, like her limbs are all wound up and ready to run if you say another word she doesn’t like. Santana gets like that sometimes, even though you’re both too old to play the _take my ball and go home_ game.

(Finn Hudson still plays that game sometimes, but nobody wants to put up with it, so he usually ends playing keep-away in his own yard with his shadow.)

Santana doesn’t usually try that old routine, especially with you, but she has this look on her face, this weird green shade around her eyebrows that makes you kind of nervous. You smile, and lay a hand on her knee, and squeeze once.

“Okay,” you tell her calmly. “Secret’s safe with me.”

It’s the right answer—it must be—and Santana’s green-terror face turns to something bright and shimmery, like a brand new silver earring held up to the sun. She looks like she wants to throw her arms around you, and you wish so badly that she just _would_ , but maybe that’s a part of The Secret, too. Maybe you’re supposed to be sneaky about everything now. It’s not really clear.

It’s fun, for a while, this comfortable little ball in the middle of your chest that burns brighter when Santana smiles at you. It’s fun, to feel her little hand take yours under the table in English, and to know that you’re going to keep The Secret up after school. It makes the school day feel so much longer, having to wait for something even more exciting than raspberry popsicles and old Scooby Doo cartoons, but you know Santana’s fighting through right beside you, and that somehow feels better. Like you’re waging a private war, just the two of you, and you’re going to win.

(You just have to beat the dreaded Math Monster first.)

It’s fun for a while, and then, slowly, you begin to think maybe it’s not. This thing you’re doing never stops making you happy, the way things with Santana always do, but the fact that you can’t talk about it…the fact that you can’t say a word, even after all this time…it stops feeling so much like a warm little ball, and more like a rock. A thick, gray boulder with jagged edges, and it’s growing larger all the time. You start to wonder if you even have that much space in you—and how much space does something like a secret really take up, anyway? And, most importantly, does Santana have a rock, too?

“We still can’t talk about it?” you ask one afternoon, a couple of years after that first time, even though you know the answer. Santana pulls back a little ways, her eyes hooded in a way you don’t like.

“No.”

“Why not?” You shouldn’t ask, shouldn’t push—Santana has been getting weird lately, with the entrance into high school, and the cheerleading, and people like Lucy ( _Quinn_ ) Fabray suddenly getting much bossier than they used to be—but you can’t help it. You feel like this is too important to choke back, to pretend not to care about. This is the biggest thing you’ve ever felt, taking up all the room in the very middle of you, and it just seems _crazy_ not to tell _somebody_.

“We can’t,” Santana tells you seriously, her hand—not so little anymore, though the fingers aren’t nearly as long as yours—pressed solidly against the beat of your heart. “People will talk, Britt.”

And that’s that, no more room for discussion: _people will talk_. You wonder if that’s really so bad, really as scary as Santana clearly thinks. People talk all the time. It’s never stopped you before.

And besides, this isn’t seventh grade anymore. Kids actually _do_ this stuff now: holding hands, and hugging between classes, and even The Secret itself. It’s not gross, or weird, or bad—not that it ever was, but even less so, now that other people are joining in. You don’t understand what Santana is so afraid of.

But Santana’s eyes are darker than usual, and her mouth keeps twitching uncomfortably, and even the hand against your heart feels anxious. You bend down, twisting into an awkward position, until your lips brush the top of one finger. She smiles.

You can’t talk about it, and that sucks, but at least you’re still _doing_ it. At least Santana hasn’t decided you’re too old for The Secret yet, or that she’d rather have A Secret with somebody else. You’re not sure what you’ll do if that day ever comes. You don’t like to think about it. It makes the rock in your chest sink too low, crushing the air out of your lungs.

You keep going, even though the pajamas don’t feel quite so comfortable anymore, even though the sleeves fall whole inches short of your wrists and the pant legs bunch up around your knees. You keep going, and you keep telling yourself that Santana knows best. Santana _gets_ this sort of thing the way you never have. If Santana’s afraid of people talking, she must have a right to be. She must be protecting you—both of you—because that’s what Santana _does_ , and you ought to just trust her. That’s what friends do.

Friends, and secret keepers, too.

You keep going, at night, on weekends, carefully shut away behind Santana’s locked door, or in the old treehouse you’ve both outgrown but are still unwilling to give up on. You keep going, and the rock grows larger, and the pajamas keep shrinking, and all the while, you can’t stop thinking that The Secret doesn’t make you feel so special anymore. It doesn’t make you feel like the world belongs to only you and Santana, like it’s a war you’ll win as long as you keep fighting on together. It makes you feel kind of sad instead, kind of lonely and confused.

You watch the other kids at school—Quinn Fabray walking arm-in-arm with Finn Hudson, Artie’s head bent close to Tina’s at lunch—and you wonder why Santana doesn’t want that with you. Why Santana is actually going _out of her way_ to keep that from being your reality. Santana tells you you’re her best friend, and that she’s never so happy as when it’s just the two of you, but she always walks a few steps away in the hallways, and she only takes your hand under the table if you’re sitting in the very back row. Sometimes, she might slip an arm around your shoulders in the movie theater darkness, but as soon as the lights blaze back, she’s gone.

Finn doesn’t do that to Quinn. Artie doesn’t duck away from Tina. What makes you so different?

It stays this way for weeks, months, maybe—it’s getting hard to keep track of how long the weight in your chest has been bearing down—and then, one day, something happens. Something neither of you are prepared for, and maybe you should know to be more careful by now, but you just get so _excited_. You’ve passed a math test—and not just passed, but _aced_ , and it’s all thanks to Santana spending a sleepless weekend cramming with you—and you feel like you could leap from the tallest building in Lima and soar straight into the sun. It’s the happiest you’ve been in a long time, outside of The Secret activities in Santana’s room, and your arms fling around her shoulders before you can stop yourself.

You’re surprised when she doesn’t seize up, doesn’t panic and shove you away. Her arms—thin and strong and beautiful—hug you back hard, and she’s laughing right in your ear, and suddenly, she’s kissing you. Or you’re kissing her. You really can’t tell which it is, and you really don’t think it matters, because it doesn’t even last that long. Of all the kisses you’ve stolen since you were twelve, each tiny building block that makes up The Secret, this must be the shortest—and then she’s wheeling backward, two fingers rubbing across her bottom lip like she can’t decide if she wants to take it back, or not.

She’s looking over your shoulder with wide eyes, and you both see him there: Noah Puckerman, with his big-kid (you’re all big kids now, and you’re supposed to stop thinking of yourself that way) haircut and his newly broadened shoulders. Noah Puckerman, who likes to be called _Puck_ now, and whose mouth is hanging open like a total jerk.

Santana’s eyes are wide open, her face going a little green around the edges again, and suddenly, you _get_ it. You see why she never wanted to talk about it, why she never wanted anybody else to know. You understand why you had to keep that rule, because rules are _always_ made to keep you safe. You and Santana.

Noah is still staring, but he seems to be getting the feeling back in his face now, and any minute now, he’s going to start shouting at the top of his lungs. Any minute now, everybody is going to know _exactly_ what he just saw—exactly what Santana never wanted _anyone_ to see—and then…and then…

You feel cold all over, the tips of your fingers and your toes tingling unpleasantly, but Santana is already charging into action. She pushes you aside—not hard, but maybe not as gently as you’d like—and storms over to Puck, catching him by the sleeve of his jacket. They’re too far away for you to hear the words, but Santana’s face is angry, and pleading, and desperate, the way she gets when she’s working her hardest to talk herself out of trouble. He stares down at her for a minute, mouth slowly winding shut, and then grins. Nods. You don’t like the way his eyebrows are positioned, like those guys on TV who smack waitresses’ butts.

She walks back to you, dragging her feet, and you find you don’t much like the look on her face, either. She looks sad, and determined, and before she even says the first word to you, you know things have changed. It isn’t about The Secret anymore. It’s about keeping Noah Puckerman’s big mouth shut.

She doesn’t explain to you what people would do if they found out two girls have been making out behind closed doors for two years. She doesn’t tell you how this town feels about _queers_. She doesn’t have to say it; you figure it out all on your own. You’re not as stupid as they think.

What she _does_ tell you is that she’s going out with Puck tonight, for pizza and a movie. You want to protest, because it’s Friday, and Friday nights are sleepover nights. You want to tell her that you already have a movie picked out at Blockbuster, and that you left your pillow on her bed for tonight, and that she really shouldn’t go _anywhere_ with Puck, because Puck’s a big jerk who doesn’t know how to be nice to anybody.

You want to tell her that she deserves to be around somebody nice, someone who will treat her like she matters, who won’t grab her butt and try to talk her into giving him a blowjob after their movie. You want to tell her, hands cradling that beautiful, sad face, that _you_ could be that somebody nice. That you don’t care what other people think, or say, or do. That she is your best friend in the world, and that you would do absolutely anything to make her feel safe again. You want to pull her by the hand, all the way to your house, and to stop on every single block corner on the way to kiss her. You want it to be in full view of the world, Noah Puckerman, Finn Hudson, _everyone_. You want to show them you’re better than them. You and Santana.

But she’s already shaking her head, already running tired fingers through her hair, and you know this isn’t the time or the place. She told you before, the number one rule: _no one can know_. And now, someone does. Now, The Secret isn’t a secret anymore, and yet, somehow, the rock in your chest feels like it’s still getting bigger.

You want to say all of this out loud, but she looks so miserable. You find yourself linking your pinky with hers—the barest of touches, careful not to get too close—and smiling as best you know how. You’ll see her tomorrow, you say carefully. She can tell you all about her date.

You wish, when she says she’d like that, it sounded like the truth.

But this is what happens, when secrets get out. You understand now, the real point of a good secret. It isn’t to make you feel happy, or special, or comfortable. Secrets keep you safe. Secrets are the only way, sometimes, anything good can happen. But secrets can’t last forever.

Sooner or later, somebody’s going to talk.  



	4. Tell Me We’re A Mess (I’ll Tell You You’re A Liar)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As long as Brittany remains _Brittany_ , Santana could never say no, or stay mad, or walk away.

Title: Tell Me We’re A Mess (I’ll Tell You You’re A Liar)  
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: Through S3 for safety's sake.  
Summary: As long as Brittany remains _Brittany_ , Santana could never say no, or stay mad, or walk away.  
A/N: [Picture Show 4/14]-"[Mad Love](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ7J2wRXPpY)"

  
_Nothing you could do could ever stop this feeling  
Nothing in the world could ever shake us up  
We’ve got all the stuff to break all of the rules, yeah  
We’ve got all the stuff to mess all of you up_

She thinks privately that Brittany could do just about anything, and it wouldn’t faze her in the slightest. Not in the long run, anyway. A moment, maybe, of head shaking or a pointed scowl, and then it would be gone, forgotten, left behind as they raced on to the next thing. This is how it has always been between them—forgiving and forgiven, no matter the cost—and Santana can’t see anything changing.

Her friendship with Brittany is the best thing she’s ever managed to keep, cupped carefully between hands that too often break and hurt and ruin, and she is proud of herself for that.

Proud—and maybe sometimes slightly confused.

But mostly the proud part.

They work, even when they shouldn’t, even though they make less sense than anything else she’s ever come in contact with. The dreamer and the walking time-bomb, the goofball and the bitch. Water and flame, innocence and corruption. She knows how silly it is, to put her faith in them above all else, but she does it anyway. It feels as though it’s the only thing she’s ever known, even when they were kids with scabbed elbows and careless laughter. Brittany is her home base, her point of origin, her North Star. Brittany does things she’d never put up with from anyone else, and Santana laughs it off. They’re simple that way.

Not that things don’t go wrong sometimes.

Things tend to happen with Brittany—things that Santana figures probably happen with all beautiful girls who live with their heads in the clouds—and sometimes, those things hurt. Sometimes physically, like the time Santana had the bright idea of visiting at midnight when they were ten, and Brittany insisted she climb the surprisingly-steep, surprisingly-slippery trellis outside of the window. Or the time Brittany wanted to make a basket with her eyes closed, and misjudged just well enough to crack Santana in the face with the ball. Or, more recently, the time Brittany—busily humming “Single Ladies” under her breath as she ran through the dance—accidentally closed the car door around Santana’s hand.

That one is still pretty fresh, though the bruises have faded past the point of recognition. Santana has been careful to keep her hands hidden safely away in her pockets near doors of all kinds ever since.

The physical stuff, though, that’s not so bad. Everybody has accidents; if it wasn’t Brittany leading her to the occasional bump on the head, Santana knows it would be someone else. It’s a perk of cheerleading, of gym class, of sharing staircases and hallways with an endless slew of lame mouth-breathers. Hell; at least Brittany’s horror at doing her minor damage is _pretty_.

Very pretty.

Which leads to the other type of hurt—the one Santana actually gives a damn about. The kind of hurt that comes from watching Brittany flounce away with half the school whenever she sees fit. The kind of hurt that strikes her dead center in the chest when Brittany smiles sadly without saying a word, all because Santana has found herself on Puckerman’s arm again. The kind of hurt that never seems to go away on nights she can’t find a good enough excuse to run three blocks to Brittany’s bed.

This stuff runs deeper than she wants it to, and there are times she can’t avoid hating herself for it. For _letting_ things like that bother her. For bothering Brittany right back. For not being able to shut it all off.

But hey, everyone’s got their problems, right? And this one isn’t _so_ bad. Not with the way they operate together, Brittany’s palm always turned up, always waiting for Santana’s to fall into it. Forgiving and forgiven; it’s the path Santana has no interest in deviating from. It’s who they are, who they should _always_ be, if fate is kind. Santana has no problem accepting that.

Sure, people don’t get it. People aren’t _going_ to get it. Quinn is forever pointing out—particularly bitchily, Santana thinks with no small amount of irritation, because Quinn likes Brittany more than most people—how dim Brittany can be, how strange her thought processes and the downright _madness_ of her actions. Puck, too, is forever being “honest” and “observant” about the way Brittany lets people in—too often—and the recklessness with which she earnestly strives to make even the worst of their classmates feel appreciated. Hell, even _Hudson_ has something to say—which pisses Santana off more than anyone else can manage, because _Hudson_ spends his every waking moment searching for a dumber thing to say than yesterday’s Sparkling Comment of Ineptitude. _Hudson_ doesn’t have a fucking right to an opinion, at this point.

None of them do. None of them have even the first _clue_ as to what she and Brittany are, what makes them so special, so different. Santana likes it that way. She likes keeping them all at arm’s length, wrapping herself protectively around Brittany and bowing her head to keep the rest of the shitstorm out. She loves the way Brittany always comes to her with questions, with problems, with never-ending care and devotion. She loves _Brittany_.

Maybe more than she should.

Things happen; there’s no denying that. Hands get caught in car doors. Hearts get wrenched around. Jealousies kick up from time to time, and friends try to step in the way, and if this were all _easy_ , Santana thinks it might somehow be less worth their time. Easy doesn’t make you feel full at night, or give you something to look forward to in the morning. Easy doesn’t make a life well lived.

Brittany can do just about anything to her—and, over the years, has, and will—and Santana will let it slide. Not because she’s looking for someone to trample her into the ground, or because she thinks it’s okay to just let _one_ person in, but because it’s Brittany. It’s a girl who maybe thinks about things in a wholly unique way, and who maybe doesn’t fit into expectation or fit protocol, and who maybe zones out just long enough to drop the rope Santana happens to be dangling from every once in a while. Maybe this is a girl who will, someday, leave her standing in a crowded hallway with her heart bleeding and blistered on her sleeve. Maybe this is a girl who will, someday, abandon her for a cripple with a gangster complex. Maybe this is a girl who will, someday, manipulate her into doing _exactly_ what she wants, regardless of how Santana feels about the whole thing.

Maybe this is a girl who has the blind capacity to do her an astounding amount of harm—and maybe that’s dangerous. Santana can admit to that.

But maybes aside, this is _definitely_ the girl who raced down the stairs, three at a time, to pick up the shattered, whimpering ten-year-old with the sprained wrist. This is the girl who held an ice pack to the basketball-shaped bruise blooming across the bridge of Santana’s nose, crying all the while. This is the girl whose horror-struck expression almost made up for the panic of having three fingers jammed between sheets of metal, and whose tender kisses drifted across her half-mangled hand for hours afterward.

This is the girl who spends half her dates sending _wish you were here_ texts under the table, who waits up each night for Santana to drop by after Puck reverts back to his natural asshole state of being, who always, _always_ leaves her window unlocked for the moments when two AM seems a good enough excuse to go pelting across those three blocks and into an inviting bed.

This is the girl who can read her like a book, who never calls her out when she’s lying, who stretches out behind her on the couch and scratches short nails up and down Santana’s belly as the world’s longest Next Top Model marathon rages onward.

Brittany hurts her, she can’t deny it, and Santana sends the hurt right back. They’re stupid—Santana more than Brittany—and hopeful—Brittany more than Santana—and there are days when everything they do comes out wrong. She’s kind of used to that by now. Insults, injuries—there’s no avoiding shit like that, sometimes.

But no matter what Brittany does or says, no matter how many people she sleeps with, or how many times she accidentally secures detention for them both, or how many instances there are of broken promises between them, she is always _Brittany_. At the end of the day, that will always be good enough for Santana. Brittany, who kept The Secret, and who smiles when no one else wants anything to do with Santana’s moods, and who kisses her like Santana is the treasure she’s been tracking her entire life.

Brittany could do just about anything, and it wouldn’t matter. As long as Brittany remains _Brittany_ , Santana could never say no, or stay mad, or walk away.

And, as far as Santana can tell, anybody who tries to dispute that is just asking to get their asses kicked.  



	5. Nobody Knows Me Like You (We’ve Got A Lot To Get Through)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The weeks belong to the struggle for popularity, for keeping what they do hidden from the world, for boys like Puck to dig their dirty fingernails in and hang on tight, but the weekend…the weekend belongs only to them.

Title: Nobody Knows Me Like You (We’ve Got A Lot To Get Through)  
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce  
Rating: Hard R  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: Nothing in particular.  
Summary: The weeks belong to the struggle for popularity, for keeping what they do hidden from the world, for boys like Puck to dig their dirty fingernails in and hang on tight, but the weekend…the weekend belongs only to them.  
A/N: [Picture Show 5/14]- "[Weekend](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDfAFpOAhbs&feature=related)"

  
_We are the ones that put on a show  
I am the one that never let go  
I’m never alone when I’m around you  
We can pretend—pretend for the weekend_

Sometimes, Brittany wonders if Santana still remembers childhood the way she does. Not the little-kid stuff that she isn’t supposed to like anymore (but still kind of does), like Gushers, or hula-hoops, or movies where the talking dogs get to go to Heaven for being so awesome, but the _real_ stuff. The important stuff. Like how to smile so your eyes light up. Or how to stick out your tongue at mean people and walk away with your head held high.

Instead, Santana seems stuck on being mean right back. Which Brittany has to admit works, and is even kind of fun, depending on who you’re talking to—she particularly enjoys making Rachel Berry scrunch up her nose in irritation—but isn’t all that _practical_. Not when the people who are being mean are striking out at nerves you don’t know how to protect.

Santana, for being so strong, and so brave, and so _hard_ around the edges, has shockingly thin skin about some things. Like about what other people might think of the things she really likes—things like a girl playing video games, or a girl watching Batman movies, or a girl kissing another girl on rainy afternoons, with no intention of letting any dumb boy watch.

For example.

It makes her sad sometimes, how much Santana has changed even just since coming to high school, and it makes it even worse, that Santana doesn’t even seem to realize it. It’s like she thinks this is all _normal_ —being rude to everyone she encounters (although, truthfully, Santana has always lacked a little in the manners department), caking on the makeup that she doesn’t need, running lines that feel cut from a 1980s film script. It’s like she thinks this is the way she’s supposed to be, like she doesn’t realize how _weird_ it feels to somebody who has known her a lot longer than the show has been parading on. Somebody who has never needed her to _pretend_ to be anyone but herself.

But Santana, if nothing else, is a terrible listener when it comes to hard truths like that one, so Brittany doesn’t try. She quickens her pace in the halls, keeping an arm locked companionably through the crook of Santana’s elbow, bats her eyes and offers fluttery winks to anyone who looks at them sideways. It’s a perk—maybe the only one—of The Secret getting out to Noah Puckerman all those months ago: they can do this now. Santana isn’t so afraid of the looks that come from hanging off her best friend in public when she’s got a boyfriend on the sidelines, sneering and licking his lips the way Puck can’t seem to resist. It’s not dangerous to seem _too close_ to Brittany when she so obviously has a man waiting for her.

That would make her sad, too, if she let it—so she doesn’t. She goes out with her own football players (and hockey players, and occasionally really cute members of the chess team), and tries not to imagine what it would be like if they didn’t live in small-town Ohio. If Santana wasn’t so mad for the top Cheerio spot. If Brittany had the power to make everyone else go away.

None of that is helpful to think about. None of it makes her heart beat less erratically when Santana’s hand glides along her skin, fingers meshing together with hers like home. None of it makes her teeth stop grinding whenever Puck saunters into the picture, grasping Santana possessively around the waist like he has any right to her.

He’s her boyfriend now, and maybe that’s only because he had a better chance than most of destroying them with a word, but it doesn’t matter. Santana seems to like him okay, and even Brittany has to admit he can be funny sometimes. Funny, but not sweet. She still believes Santana could use someone sweet.

She just doesn’t dare believe that someone could be her anymore.

Not on school days, anyway, when there’s no escape from Santana’s flirty expressions, or her bedroom eyes, or the too-clear view of her fingers tracing up into the buzzed hair around Puck’s dumb mohawk. School days are for what Brittany thinks of as The Show—The Show, replacing The Secret, and Brittany wonders why there is always _some_ act for her to put on with Santana. The Show is where they smile at boys, and flick their skirts a little too high, and sometimes sneak out of class to make out with burly baseball players with broad hands and baggy jeans. The Show is what’s getting them places, Santana says, making people really _believe_ how awesome they are, and she looks so happy when she says it that Brittany can’t stop herself from nodding. Santana wants to be on top, wants everybody to look at her, _see_ her, and Brittany can’t bring herself to stand in the way of that.

It takes some time, but she convinces herself that The Show isn’t so bad. It makes her head tingle in weird ways sometimes—especially when she has to witness the absolutely _grody_ image of Puck’s creepy man-tongue slurping its way past Santana’s lips—but at least the stone resting on her heart hasn’t grown any bigger. And it _does_ make her feel good, to see the way people have been looking at her—like she’s interesting, and sexy, and someone they want to spend time with.

It’s not as good as Santana, but it gets her through the week.

And then come the weekends: beautiful, sterling weekends, when The Show goes into temporary intermission. The weekends push Brittany on to real smiles, to the laughter of childhood, because weekends aren’t _for_ anybody else. The weeks belong to the struggle for popularity, for keeping what they do hidden from the world, for boys like Puck to dig their dirty fingernails in and hang on tight, but the weekend…the weekend belongs only to them.

Santana is still different on weekends from how she used to be. She still spends too much time in front of the mirror, and too little tracing the lines on Brittany’s palm. She still checks her phone for messages from Quinn, or Puck, or their teammates. Sometimes, Brittany catches her staring at her reflection, eyes old and distant, trying to figure out the details of a story Brittany already knows by heart.

Santana is still different, but on the weekends, she is at least _Santana_. Coiled in Brittany’s bed, lazy muscles relaxing with each pass of Brittany’s lips, hands, gaze, she smiles. Maybe not the bright, piecing smile of a ten-year-old on a baseball diamond, but it warms Brittany anyway. It fills her with the kind of hope she shouldn’t be letting herself have anymore: that, someday, this will all change back to how it was. Someday, Puck will find the door and never return, and Santana will stop charging around with fists raised beneath a tense chin, and Brittany can finally hold her hand in public without tacking on a knowing wink for their adoring audience.

The weeks make it hard to believe, but weekends are different. Weekends are familiar, and homey, and smell like oatmeal-raisin cookies and the breath of Santana’s goodnight kiss.

It’s hard, on a Sunday night-Monday morning-Wednesday afternoon, knowing how short a weekend can be. Two days, three nights, and that’s all they’ve got. Funny how, on Fridays, after Santana has slipped in from her date and kicked off her shoes and tucked herself into Brittany’s bed, everything feels so like _forever_. And then, not three days later, they find themselves standing on the back stoop of Sunday: Santana’s hand clutching at her other arm, lip between her teeth, trying not to look guilty. Brittany, bending to kiss her cheek once, the way friends are still allowed to under cover of streetlamps, and forcing a smile.

It’s hard, knowing how unfairly short a weekend can be when school days drag on and on, but she tries to forget. Because right now, it’s Saturday afternoon, and her head rests on Santana’s folded legs. Santana has one hand combing through her hair, nails licking at the scalp here and there, the other closed around a remote control. There’s nothing on TV, but she keeps searching anyway, darting from home renovation program to crappy cartoon to half-over Drew Barrymore movie. Brittany closes her eyes, humming, fingers plucking an invisible guitar.

“You should play,” Santana says quietly, unwilling to break the mood. Brittany cracks one eye, craning back to stare at the underside of Santana’s chin.

“I don’t have a guitar.”

“So we’ll buy you one.” Santana shrugs, abandoning the remote at last in favor of curling her fingers around Brittany’s mid-strum. “We could find somebody who’d teach you. It’d be easy.”

Of course it would; Puck plays better than anybody would assume from looking at him. But of course, Santana won’t say that out loud. Not on a weekend. Weekends are for pretending none of that exists.

“Maybe,” Brittany settles for saying, stretching up and brushing a warm kiss into Santana’s neck. She gets a happy little squirm for her trouble, and just barely manages to keep from wondering if Santana ever squirms for anyone else.

“It would be sexy,” Santana says, satisfied, falling backwards until her head is cushioned upon a pile of pillows. “Sexy rocker girl.”

Brittany laughs and twists around, clambering up Santana’s body until they’re face to face. “I am pretty sexy, huh?”

“The sexiest,” Santana agrees, hands slipping into Brittany’s back pockets and giving a cheerful little pat. “After me, anyway.”

Brittany can’t argue that. She wriggles in closer, mouth enveloping Santana’s bottom lip, delighted when the hands on her ass squeeze reflexively. There’s a lot about Santana that never grows old, and kissing may well be at the very top of the list. Brittany has kissed a lot of people in recent memory, but no one does it like Santana—plump lips, hot tongue, low moans that vibrate all the way down to Brittany’s toes and back again. Santana holds her close, grinds her hips in time to the ever-shifting angles of her head, and never seems willing to let go.

Brittany thinks that might be her very favorite part. It’s in these moments, her waist between Santana’s legs, her hair tangled around gentle fingers, the tip of her tongue drawing shapes and hopes into the breadth of Santana’s, that she applauds herself for holding out until Friday night. Moments like this one, where Santana shifts and sighs, palm grazing up under Brittany’s shirt and resting against the waistband of her jeans, leave her breathless and whole, the way she hasn’t felt since rushing home with The Secret in her pocket.

Her mouth opens to Santana, graciously accepting the nip of her teeth, the whispered moan that sends tickles through the tips of her fingers, and holds tighter to Santana’s shoulder, cheek, hair. Anything she can reach belongs to her, suits her, fits inside _her_ domain—hers, and no one else. When it’s Santana, and her, and this empty room, she doesn’t have to share a thing. Not if she doesn’t want to.

As Santana’s nails trace thin lines just left of the groove of her spine, until Brittany’s back arches and her breath leaves her, Brittany can’t imagine why she’d ever let anyone else into _this_. This is the only place she ever wants to be.

If they could do this every day…if every day could be the weekend, with no one staring, no one waiting, no one whisking Santana away—

But there’s no point thinking like that right now, no point making herself sad. It’s Saturday. Santana’s kisses are deliciously slow and calculated, her palms running higer, fingers flicking at the bra clasp she finds without effort. Santana’s body is lazy, her jeans tight, her hips rocking to match Brittany’s rhythm. This isn’t the time to be thinking about school, and boys, and popularity contests. None of that exists here.

Here, she knows to grasp Santana’s leg, just beneath the bend of her knee, and slide her hand slowly up. She knows the weight and curve of Santana’s thigh as it meets her backside, and higher, until she’s all sharp hipbone and delicate waist. She knows the spot, just beneath the waistband of her jeans, that will make Santana buck up into her, warmth flooding between her legs. She knows to kiss the base of Santana’s neck, to stroke a deliberate path along the jut of her collarbone until it glistens, until Santana’s chest rises and falls a little quicker, her breath catching. She knows to palm Santana’s left breast first, over the shirt, squeezing just hard enough to be felt, and she knows to hike her hips forward _just_ as her palm skates across the erect nipple.

In this bed, she knows what the dark glaze in Santana’s eyes means—not _hurry up_ , but _more, please_ —and she knows that the wait makes it better. That Santana is wildly impatient, but that this is _Saturday_ , and the longer it lasts, the better. That Santana is pushing off the mattress, her mouth seeking out Brittany’s with an almost casual want, like she knows she’s going to get exactly what she’s looking for just as soon as Brittany is ready to give it.

It’s only on the weekend that they can take their time, replacing rough, heated kisses with careful, purposeful ones. It’s only on the weekend that Brittany can raise Santana’s shirt an inch at a time, tasting every corner and curve of skin as she finds it. It’s only on the weekend that Santana will lift up like that on her elbows to watch, and lift a hand to the top of Brittany’s head, stroking through thick gold to hang on for the ride.

If they do this on a weekday, it’s hurried, frantic, a get-off-and-get-gone situation. On weekdays, it’s Brittany backed up against a desk, Santana half-mounting her before she’s fully aware that they’re even _here_. It’s Santana, pressed face-first into a shower stall, keening as quietly as she can while Brittany’s hips are fitted snugly around her, fingers buried between spread legs. It’s stolen moments beneath the bleachers when the _want_ grows too hot, too forest-fire-reckless to be forgotten for the sake of The Show.

On a weekday, an orgasm might be explosive, incendiary, a hundred words Brittany hasn’t yet invented, but on a weekend…with her tongue swirling around a tight nipple, her palm rubbing across the seam of Santana’s warm, dampening jeans, her head bobbing with the knowledge that Santana’s gaze—flickering long eyelashes stroking across rosy cheeks on every down-stroke—is fixed solidly upon her…

On weekends, on _Saturdays_ , she knows Santana’s brain isn’t firing a thousand miles an hour, working out problems and schedules, the hierarchy of the whole town mapped out behind her kiss. On Saturdays, Santana is right here: hips lifting obediently, legs kicking off denim, and cotton, leaving nothing behind but radiant velvet skin and the glisten of a job well worked. Santana is right in this bed, her hand still closed around the back of Brittany’s head, guiding her, easing her, granting permission and begging for a gift all at the same time. Santana is bending and spinning, arching and groaning, every whimper and whine sinking into Brittany’s ears as she works: tongue, and lips, and the barest scratch of teeth. She is allowed free reign on a Saturday, allowed to open Santana slowly, to press knowing palms to inner thighs and spread as far as they will go. She is allowed to take her time, to sweep long, luxurious kisses up, and across, skipping over the hottest, most wanting of parts until Santana’s squirms turn to jerks, until Santana’s nails bite into her scalp, her voice huskier, raspier, pushing Brittany to the limit of her own sanity.

On a weekday, she wouldn’t be allowed to even get this far, to reach her knees and part her lips, but on a Saturday, she may stay here as long as she likes. Inhaling Santana, until the only thing in the world is _this_ , the sight of a flexing stomach, of a free hand kneading one soft breast, of Santana’s hips rising and falling without measure. She may kiss, and lick, all open-mouthed kisses and brief tastes, embracing Santana with eager lips, driving Santana with fascinated strokes of a loving tongue.

On a Saturday, she gets to hear all the words Santana won’t say otherwise: the breathy begging, the growls for more, the _oh’s_ and _mmph’s_ , the strangled moans that clench on the back of her tongue and then release, vibrant and explosive, into the bedroom air. On a Saturday, she hears the words that tumble and shimmer in her dreams: the _I need you_ , the _only you_ , the _Brittany, Brittany, Brittany_ that she can’t find anywhere else. And she knows, in this moment, with one hand cupped against Santana’s skin and the other pressing in, two fingers curling faster as her mouth descends again, that Santana doesn’t get this with other people. Santana doesn’t _give_ this with other people. Santana won’t admit it out loud, won’t say it in so many words, but the _I need you’s_ are so true, so much more _real_ than anything Puck or those other guys will ever see.

Santana comes around her, muscles vibrating, legs trembling, slick and smooth and triumphant, and Brittany thanks God for Saturdays. Saturdays are when everything else goes away, when nothing else matters but the taste of Santana on her tongue, the flare of a blush across Santana’s chest, the swollen sight of Santana’s skin, still hot and damp, hidden between her legs. Saturdays are when she _gets_ Santana the way Santana has always had her, and maybe it’s not perfect—maybe it’s not _enough_ —but it’s something more than Brittany ever thought she’d have, once The Secret was out. Maybe it’s sad, and maybe it hurts, but in the end, to be able to stroke slow kisses back up Santana’s thigh, to nibble at her hip, to taste the edge of her ribcage, the smooth underside of her breast, the rapid thump-thump-thump of her heartbeat—

It’s more than she thought she’d ever get again, months ago, and yet, here they are. Here Santana is: still angry, still different, still forgetting how to give up and give what she wants a real chance, but _here_ nonetheless.

It’s the weekend, and it’s what keeps Brittany from letting go when Monday arrives with its trademark smirk and a pair of linked pinkies.  
  



	6. I Never Was Too Good (At Following Rules)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Because, Santana, girls don't marry princesses."

Title: I Never Was Too Good (At Following Rules)  
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce  
Rating: R  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: None in particular.  
Summary: "Because, Santana, girls don't marry princesses."  
A/N: [Picture Show 6/14]- "[Lessons In Love (All Day, All Night)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEjcChZOKrM)"

  
_All day, all night, I got the lights in my eyes  
And I’m falling for you  
Keep cool, stay tough  
But that’s never enough_

She still remembers being five years old and getting sat down on her grandmother’s ugly brown couch with all the weird tulips scattered across its arms. She remembers the question that got her there— _Abuela, when will I find my Disney Princess? Like Daddy found when Mama married him._ —and the glint in her grandmother’s eyes. She remembers the feeling that always came with that couch, the realization that this was _trouble_ and that she should have used her brain before her mouth, like her teacher keeps telling her when she winds up in the Think About Your Mistake corner.

The Think About Your Mistake corner sucked, but it was a heck of a lot better than the stupid tulip couch, which itched and made her stomach go tight with fear. Abuela was never big on caning, but she was more likely to do it than Mom or Dad have ever been, and the few times it did happen were more than enough.

She remembers thinking, even at five, that it would be stupid to get spanked for a question like that one. What’s so wrong with wanting your Disney Princess? Aladdin got his, and so did Eric (although, true, she kind of had flippers), and Simba (even if she wasn’t so much a princess as a lion, but whatever, she was _much_ cooler than that stupid bimbo Cinderella). If all of those dopes could get their princess on, why shouldn’t Santana? After all, she could have wiped the floor with an streetrat like Aladdin—or that sucker _Charming_ , for God’s sake—in two seconds flat.

And she wouldn’t have ended up with a fish girl, either.

She remembers thinking all of this, rapid-fire, clear as day. Clearer still is the image of Abuela settling her even-then old bones carefully atop the coffee table and leaning in, one gnarled hand sweeping Santana’s up from her nervously bouncing knee.

“Santana,” she remembers like a slap across the face, “you won’t be finding a princess.”

It was as simple as that, like Abuela couldn’t imagine needing to explain further, and Santana remembers her own eyes widening. She remembers the tight fist clenching in her stomach, worse than any accusation of taking too long to finish dinner, too long to deserve a snack afterwards.

“But _why_?” she remembers demanding. “ _Dad_ got one. _Everyone_ gets one.”

She remembers wanting to cry, and reminding herself, even then, that tears were for wusses.

The dry-paper rasp of Abuela’s hand leaving hers, the awkward pull of Abuela’s mouth as her head tilted—they’re still with her now. She still hears the answer between her ears, the volume ratcheted all the way up.

“Because, Santana,” her grandmother said stiffly, “girls don’t marry princesses.”

And that was that.

_Girls don’t marry princesses_ —it felt weak back then, like a story without the courtesy of an ending, but if her grandmother said it…Abuela always said lying was the worst sin. If Abuela says it, it must be true, the biggest kind of truth, the kind everyone believes in so wholeheartedly, they don’t even need to discuss it. Santana is a girl, and girls don’t marry princesses. Let it go.

And she did, as only a five-year-old can. She let it go, walking slowly back to the yard and her raggedy soccer ball, and she forgot. Mostly.

What does a five-year-old need a princess for?

***

She remembers being seven years old, and running smack into a girl with long white-gold hair and a teddy bear. It’s that bear she remembers most vividly: scuffed, with green fur and only one jeweled eye, its paws Sharpie’d to hell and back again. The bear was the strangest thing.

The girl, comparatively, was just pretty.

“Sorry,” she remembers blurting, not because she really _was_ , but because she always got in trouble for making the sissy kids cry. Sometimes, saying sorry shut them up before the teacher could come running and plant her in time-out. It was worth the extra effort.

She remembers saying it, and then just staring at that bear. The girl, for her part, only grinned.

“You’re new!”

She wasn’t, not to the whole school. She had just been swapped over from the other class—the second-third split, the one where she overturned the arts-and-crafts table in protest for them hiding the glitter glue. That class didn’t _get_ her, so this new teacher—a young woman with a sunny smile and painfully green eyes—took her in. Like a stray dog.

At the time, she kind of felt special. Looking back now, Santana thinks the whole thing was pretty pathetic. What kind of teacher is so lame, they can’t even handle a precocious seven-year-old?

She remembers shrugging, hands in her pockets, still staring at that stupid bear. “I guess. Sort of. I’m Santana.” Always introduce yourself first. It gives you the chance to run away after the other person has gone, before the conversation can really get going.

“Brittany,” the girl had said, wiggling the bear around under Santana’s nose. “And this is Sherlock.”

“Sherlock,” Santana remembers repeating dumbly. “Like the stories.”

Brittany had wrinkled her nose, crystal eyes gleaming under crappy fluorescent lights. “What stories?”

It was the first of a million _never minds_ , Santana shaking her head and pressing on to the next point. The bear was weird, she remembers thinking, but the girl…

The girl looked like Cinderella, if Cinderella hadn’t been so whiny, or Sleeping Beauty, if the idiot had bothered to wake her own ass up. She had a smile like Ariel’s, all bright and strong, and legs that looked strong, like Jasmine’s. Her hair, Santana remembers noticing, was the color of Nala’s fur.

The girl was, no doubt about it, a _princess_ —and all Santana could do was gape.

_Girls don’t marry princesses_ , she remembers telling herself firmly, her heart sinking in her chest. _They just don’t._

Which was sad, and kind of totally unfair, because Brittany had such a nice smile, and such blue eyes, and the clasp of her hand around Santana’s wrist felt so much stronger than she was ready for. And, when Santana forgot to raise her hand an hour later, and accidentally let a swear word slip out as she was giving her answer, and found herself sitting in time-out _anyway_ , Brittany snuck over. No one ever sneaks _into_ time-out, but Brittany did, and Santana remembers the way she grinned fearlessly and shoved Sherlock tight against Santana’s unprepared chest.

_Girls don’t marry princesses_ , but—no one ever said anything about _marriage_. Only grown-ups got married. Kids like her were too little, too untangled from the adult madness to even think about getting married. So, maybe girls didn’t marry princesses—but who could say they couldn’t be _friends_ with them?

As far as she could tell, being friends was a whole lot easier.

Thinking back, Santana wonders if she was really ever dumb enough to believe that.

***

She remembers being twelve years old—twelve on the cusp of thirteen—sitting cross-legged on the Pierce family room floor. Brittany’s white-gold lion hair had turned darker over the years, until it was just pure gold, spun through the gaps in Santana’s fingers. She remembers the first time she truly noticed it, as something more than just _hair_ —as something lovely and special, belonging only to Brittany. Something Brittany wanted to share with her.

She remembers realizing how important that could be, for someone their age. Sharing in elementary school was expected, even mandatory, but at twelve, it became a choice. You don’t share things when you’re twelve because someone forces you to; you do it because you _like_ the idea.

Brittany liked the idea of sharing everything she had with Santana. Even now, years later, she’s a little dumbstruck by that fact.

She remembers trailing her fingers through silk, following the brush with her hands as Brittany’s shoulders bopped along to the music on the TV. How surprisingly warm the locks were against her skin, drifting lazily down around the middle of Brittany’s back. She remembers thinking that there was something important about this, too—how Brittany’s hair could feel like something else entirely, something too grand for Santana to put into normal teenage terms—and that maybe it was even more important than the Pierces going out this evening without them, trusting them alone in the house.

She’d never been trusted to stay on her own before that day.

She remembers Brittany shaking her hands off, and falling back against her chest, then, heedless of her bent knees, or the hairbrush, or her surprise. Brittany was done with the hair thing; Brittany was moving on to the next desire. Brittany has always been like that, to some degree. Santana thinks she likes it. It keeps her on her toes.

She remembers the smell of Brittany’s hair beneath her nose: burnt cookies and happiness. The weight of Brittany’s back against her thin chest, pushing her to skid backwards on the plush carpet until her hands fell behind her, holding them both up. The echo of her grandmother’s voice in her ears:

_Girls don’t marry princesses._

She hadn’t gone two weeks without remembering that law, the concrete truth smackdown Abuela laid without any care or thought as to how it would make Santana feel. Not two weeks without reminding herself that it wasn’t _okay_ to fall in love with a princess, not when you were born with princess-parts, not when your grandmother had been so serious and so sure about it.

But at twelve years old, who falls in love?

Santana remembers telling herself, a little angry, a little frustrated, that it wasn’t _love_ she was looking for. Love was stupid and weak, the crap that leads you to risk your life facing dragons and sociopathic gay uncles. Love was pointless, even then; she’d heard enough of her parents’ arguments to be certain of that.

Love was dumb, and _girls don’t marry princesses_ , but who _cared_? Brittany was her best friend, and she smelled so nice, and when her head tilted back against the slope of Santana’s shoulder, her teeth showing in the happiest grin imaginable, Santana remembers feeling _sad_. Sad, because being best friends with a princess maybe wasn’t as awesome as it could have been. Because being best friends with a princess always sort of left you wanting _more_.

She remembers not thinking about it, not letting herself put the action into words in her head. She remembers just _going_ , her neck bending, her mouth clumsily striking a spot just left of Brittany’s grin. Pausing, embarrassed, and then trying again, dead-on this time. She remembers the thrill in her stomach when Brittany made that _sound_ —the tiny muffled _oomph_ , like making a catch you didn’t expect at the end of the ninth inning—and moved her mouth in response. A real kiss, like on TV, like she hadn’t seen between her parents in who knew how long.

_Girls don’t marry princesses_ , she remembers thinking, winding gray carpet fibers between her fingers and tugging. Relishing the difference between this and the softness of Brittany’s sleek gold hair.

It started right then, the hiding. Because girls aren’t supposed to marry princesses, and _everybody_ knows that. If she wanted to keep this, the tingle of Brittany on her lips, the beaming smile she received for her daring, it would have to be a secret.

It was important, she remembers thinking, more important than sharing or being left alone in a big, empty house. It was the most important thing possible.

Santana doesn’t know how she thought it would last.

***

She remembers being halfway to fifteen— a striking July, just about ready to dive feet-first into the high school sewage system—and laying with Brittany in her bed. Her room is in the basement, so it only made sense that they would be here, stretched out in sticky tank tops and shorts that probably should have seen the Purple Heart donation bag a year ago. Not that it mattered. The more skin, the better, on a day like that one. She remembers the heat being her reason.

She remembers knowing, even then, that the excuse was kind of bullshit.

They were still keeping The Secret, then—Brittany’s idea, the capital letters, like it belonged to a federal government agency and not to a pair of sneaking teenage girls—stealing moments only when no one else could ever see. Because no one else could ever know, because _girls don’t marry princesses_.

She remembers the flare of anger in her stomach at the thought, laying there with Brittany’s strong legs twined between her own. She remembers feeling hateful, spiteful, thinking, _Who says? Who has the right to_ decide _a thing like that?_ She remembers sucking in a breath and holding it, letting her fingertip roam across the smooth plane of Brittany’s forehead, down the length of her nose, catching on the thumbprint above her top lip. She remembers steadying herself as Brittany wriggled nearer, just a bit, just enough to make her skin hum with recognition.

They were on the brink of something new, she knows now—and knew then, even if she couldn’t comprehend it in full—something as great and as dangerous as pushing a weird teddy into the delinquent new classmate’s arms, or kissing, alone, in a house with no parents. It echoed in the languid, almost sleepy stroke of Brittany’s legs against her own, toes trailing across her ankle bone and up, down, fluid motions along a shin bone still bruised from last week’s soccer game. The courage it took to pull Brittany’s knuckles against sun-chapped lips and hold them there. The buzz of summer sun, creeping through the crack of window set into the base of the house.

It was something great, and huge, and too much for halfway to fifteen, but all at once, she was _there_ —there, and not turning back. She remembers telling herself that Brittany deserved to feel special, as special as Santana had felt for so many years, just for being her friend. She remembers glowering at the neon-bright sign in her head, the glaring commandment tattooed into the very middle of her brain:

_Girls don’t marry princesses._

_Fuck that_ , she remembers thinking, and, very deliberately, inching across the pillow. Feeling her way across the pad of Brittany’s lip, smiling when Brittany sighed softly in response. Growing bolder, her hand touching down upon pale skin, the bit that glowed between shirt and shorts. She remembers the ache in her teeth at how sweet Brittany felt, at how _strange_ it was to be touching someone else this way. Intimate, and new, and beautiful in a way she doesn’t imagine her grandmother ever could understand. Just skin, just the edge of Brittany’s hip, and yet…

She remembers pulling Brittany that last miniscule inch to meet her, and just like that, being flush against her best friend’s body. Feeling the thrum of a heartbeat, syncing up to her own, and the strangely familiar rush of Brittany’s pelvis against the front of her shorts. One motion, one swift decision, and that was all; Brittany’s gasp, her hand closing on the base of Santana’s ribcage, said it all. She remembers grinning, the stupid, silly grin of a kid in love. A kid with a secret. A kid with a beautiful, golden-haired princess, sweat trickling down her neck, blue eyes wide as hips bumped and jumbled in this new, terrifying way.

Taking Brittany’s face in one hand, kissing her then, felt so _different_ than the kisses of the past. Different than a first-brush, dart-away dance, or even from the sensation of Brittany’s lips parting beneath hers in the treehouse after dinner. Different than anything she’d ever felt, and Santana remembers smiling into the kiss. Smiling, and holding tight to Brittany’s hip, guiding her gently in until they met again, and again, a slow, building friction that seemed to light her from the inside.

She remembers Brittany’s arm around her waist, the stroke of her palm upon Santana’s tailbone, easing them together and apart like a sailboat bouncing against a dock’s edge. She remembers the way Brittany’s kiss scorched, slow, tentative, but _happy_. Unmistakably, undeniably wanting, the way Santana had felt on so many nights, bursting into consciousness with her pulse racing back in some shocking dream.

She remembers rolling until Brittany was stretched out before her, until her arms trembled with the effort of holding herself up. She remembers the fear, occurring to her the way things do only when you’re trying something for the first time, the concern that she might crush Brittany if she were to lay down. And she remembers the way Brittany giggled, arching up to kiss her again, hands clasped at the base of Santana’s spine. Holding her. Reassuring her.

Brittany always seemed to know what was going on in a way Santana couldn’t begin to track. Brittany, who seemed so careful, fingers winding in cotton and pulling slowly, patiently, blue eyes following each new bit of skin as it was revealed. She remembers feeling momentarily shaken, when the shirt drew up over her shoulders and dropped, and then—nothing. No fear. Just Brittany, gazing at her like she’d been waiting her whole life to see what Santana really had to offer under all the tight t-shirts and brazen laughter.

Just Brittany, lifting her hips from the bed and letting the shorts go, letting the underwear follow, until _just Brittany_ became something Santana had only dared to imagine. Until _just Brittany_ became less a fantasy and more her best friend, laying naked in her bed, letting her take it all in.

She remembers the shock of touching bare skin for the first time, of Brittany’s hips jolting against the mattress, of Brittany’s eyes going dark as they watched, lip between her teeth. She remembers the surprise in Brittany’s voice, squeaking out something like _careful_ when Santana’s finger sank below a flat stomach. She remembers going slow, slower than she’s ever done anything in her life, because Brittany’s brow was furrowing in some meld of fear and expected pain.

She remembers taking forever to learn Brittany’s curves and angles, her mouth caught open against Brittany’s taut bicep, dark hair plastered to her own forehead. She remembers feeling afraid that she would do something wrong, something that would bring a shout of agony, that would make Brittany shove her away. She remembers barely even being aware of her own center, wet and achingly hot, pushing against Brittany’s bare thigh as she worked. She remembers the way Brittany’s hand shot across her body, clenching at Santana’s shoulder, striving to stay grounded.

She remembers how wonderful it felt, seeing the surprise in Brittany’s eyes, watching her lips part and her head bend against the pillow. She remembers feeling on top of the world, prouder than she’d ever been in her life, and thinking, _Suck it. Girls can marry whoever they damn well please._ She had her princess, and no one— _no one_ —was going to strip that away.

She flashes back now to a few months later, standing stupidly in the school parking lot. Telling Noah Puckerman she’d go out with him as long as he forgot everything he just saw. She wonders how she ever could have been so naïve, to think that moment would never come.

***

She remembers last week, standing—shaking—before a bathroom mirror. Applying lip gloss that would only rub off in the next hour, staring herself down in the smudged glass. Looking like someone else entirely, like a grown-up, built-up version of herself. Like an adult.

An adult with her princess in the next room.

It’s startling every time she sees herself this way, in life or in memory: a grown child, wrapped in clothes that shouldn’t belong to her, coated in makeup that doesn’t fit right on her face. Hidden away from the beautiful girl in the bedroom, the girl who shared her ridiculous teddy, who kept The Secret for too long, who stretched her long limbs upon that dark bedspread and whimpered Santana’s name on a sticky summer day. Hidden away from her best friend.

Brittany doesn’t like it when she does this, she knows. She remembers the disappointment in crystal eyes, the slight droop of a chin, the gentle twist of fingers in her lap. She knows Brittany doesn’t get it, why she would waste all this time and energy on something so stupid.

But Brittany never learned the golden rule. Brittany never had an Abuela to deliver that particular brand of tough love.

_Girls don’t marry princesses._ Which means girls don’t fall _in love_ with princesses. Girls aren’t stupid enough to think that, as long as they hide it in a safe locked box, no one will ever find out about the rules they’re breaking.

_Girls don’t marry princesses_ , and Santana understands that now. It’s just not something you do. It’s not a Disney movie, not a hyped-up story with a happy ending. It just _doesn’t_ happen.

She remembers last week, running a thumb below her lip to catch an unwelcome smear, locking eyes with her reflection. Making a promise she should have made a long time ago. A promise to be strong. To be cool. To keep it all out.

Sex isn’t dating.

Sex isn’t love.

Girls don’t marry princesses.

Some rules, she’s learning at last, just can’t be broken.  



	7. You Lose All Your Friends (That’s The Thing About Trust)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It makes her crazy, that any one of those idiots might think they know the first thing about them.

Title: You Lose All Your Friends (That’s The Thing About Trust)  
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: Through 1x13.  
Summary: It makes her crazy, that any one of those idiots might think they know the first thing about them.  
A/N: [Picture Show 7/14]- "[Trust](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOIjFrEvmng)"

  


_You appear as a child  
With your heart on your sleeve  
But you’re acting exactly as you do in my dreams  
I said you, you are not what you seem_

People assume Brittany’s dumb more often than Santana can put up with. They think she’s silly, flaky, flighty—and maybe that’s all true, maybe she really is kind of ridiculous sometimes, but Santana has never believed that to be a _bad_ thing. Her head lives in the clouds, her feet tap-dancing their way through her own special land, and sometimes, it makes it hard to get her attention when you need it—but Santana _likes_ that about her.

Brittany being who she is balances Santana better than she thought she would ever need.

People think Brittany’s dumb, and she’s _not_. School isn’t her thing, numbers and words swimming across the page in uneven strokes, and her focus isn’t the greatest, either, but that doesn’t make her stupid. It doesn’t make her any less perceptive or brilliant than anybody else. In fact, compared to the rest of the losers in this school, Santana thinks Brittany is pretty much a goddamn social whiz kid.

And, honestly? Sometimes, she sort of wishes that weren’t so true.

Brittany is smart where it counts, and calculated, and _so_ aware of the world around her that things can get a little scary. Brittany knows exactly what she’s doing, even if it takes her a few minutes longer than most to get there. Santana believes that with everything she is.

So when Brittany lets slip the _sex isn’t dating_ rule—the new mantra of their friendship, the one that has kept them afloat through Quinn Fabray’s pregnancy, and joining the goddamn New Directions, and learning that they actually _don’t_ hate singing and dancing like a couple of jackasses—in front of a whole _slew_ of losers…Santana can’t assume it’s a mistake. She can’t assume it wasn’t intentional. Brittany just doesn’t _do_ stuff that way, like people think she does. Like a moron.

Brittany— _her_ Brittany, the Brittany who falls asleep with her mouth open and a hand clenched around Santana’s shirt, the Brittany who swirls them both around and around in the kitchen and dips Santana _right_ when the timer dings, the Brittany who bites down on every argument before she can make them—isn’t a moron. No matter what other people think.

She catches hold of Brittany’s sleeve when the phone call is over, pulling her into the bathroom and snarling, “Get _out_ ,” to the band of freshman girls tittering by the sinks. Standing there, between sink and stall, hand on her hip, she can’t think of what to say. She can’t think of _anything_.

“Why?” is the best she’s got. Brittany tilts her head.

“Because,” she answers, “they’re our friends.”

“They’re _not_ ,” Santana insists, punching a sink hard enough to bruise her knuckles. Brittany makes a disappointed face, mouth thinning as she catches Santana’s hand and turns it over gently.

“You need to stop hitting things.”

“And _you_ need to stop telling people our secrets.” Santana becomes abruptly aware that she is shouting and closes her eyes, zeroing in on the tender pressure of Brittany’s touch upon her injury. “I just—remember the last time someone found out about us?”

Brittany looks at her steadily, with eyes that plainly state how well she remembers. They both do, Santana knows. It isn’t the sort of thing you forget.

“They’re our friends,” Brittany repeats, “whether you want them to be or not.”

Santana wants to scream that there isn’t anything _close_ to friendship in that choir room, that those idiots would tear them both apart without a second thought. That revenge is a lot more tempting than loyalty when it comes to the bullied.

Besides, _Puck_ is their friend—Puck, and Quinn, and even that idiot Hudson, and she wouldn’t trust a damn one of them with their secret. That’s why she works so hard to pretend the threesomes with her ex-boyfriend are _his_ idea, and why she brings so much alcohol to Quinn’s dumb little girl-time sleepovers. She has done _everything_ in her power to keep these plates spinning—Brittany, the noise in her head, the promise she made herself, the appearance they’ve crafted for the rest of the world—and here, in one fell swoop, with one off-hand remark, Brittany has brought it all crashing down.

“It’s going to be in the paper tomorrow,” she warns, sagging against the sink and staring down its drain. “And on that Jacob idiot’s blog. Everyone will know.”

Which shouldn’t matter, not if _sex isn’t dating_ , but the very idea still makes her stomach wrench like it’s going to dispel her lunch right here and now.

“They’re our friends,” Brittany insists a third time. “They won’t tell. They won’t do that to us.”

Santana can’t believe that. Maybe Brittany can, or maybe she’s just making it up to soothe them both, but either way, Santana’s not that trusting. She can’t afford to be, not with the Head Cheerio position up for grabs, and Sylvester breathing fetid, championship breath down their necks, and Quinn giving her those _looks_ in class. She can’t afford to believes that Wheels, and Aretha, and Vampire Chang, Mistress of the Night would actually have their backs. Not when they have no earthly reason to do so.

She shakes her head, unclenching her jaw slowly, painfully, and takes her hand back from between both of Brittany’s. “Fine. They know now, either way, there’s no taking that back. I just hope you’re right.”

Worse comes to worst, she thinks, accepting Brittany’s pinky with her good hand, who the hell would believe anything that falls from _those_ lame-ass mouths? Gossip about the two hottest girls in school doing the nasty would go much, much further, if it hadn’t spilled from Tinkerbell’s lips, or Rollerboy’s Twitter feed. It’s bad, them knowing, but it could be much, much worse. And hey, if they take sectionals, maybe their tiny guppy brains will forget all about this.

Either way, the incident proves once again what she has always known—what the other kids in this school would absolutely _shit_ themselves to realize—about Brittany S. Pierce:

For all her innocence, her pretty blue eyes, her misspelled words—she is a goddamn _genius_.

_You appear as a devil  
Like a wolf in the woods  
But you’re acting exactly  
As we expected you would_

People think Santana is a bad person, a real black-hat type, but Brittany doesn’t see it. They all think she’s mean (okay, true), and sarcastic (also true), and heartless (the furthest thing from truth that has ever been). They think she would push her own grandmother under a bus, if it came to that, which is the stupidest thing Brittany has ever heard. If only because Santana’s Abuela is downright terrifying.

She makes her granddaughter look like a harmless little kitten, from where Brittany’s standing.

Anyway, the idea that Santana is a _bad person_ is just ridiculous. She’s harsh sometimes, sure, and maybe she gets a little too much joy from watching people cry, but whatever—Brittany finds that funny herself, once in a while. It doesn’t make her, like, _evil_.

But, for whatever reason, other people don’t seem to get that. Even their friends—girls like Quinn, guys like Puck—are more likely to call Santana a raging bitch than to actually _listen_ to what she’s saying. Which makes Brittany mad, but, at the same time, is a weird sort of relief. It feels good—better than it should, probably—to know she’s the only person Santana truly trusts. The only person Santana leans on when things get bad.

Feeling that way probably makes her a far worse person than Santana has ever been, but she can’t help it. She needs Santana. It feels good to be needed in return.

Still, when things go wrong—like at sectionals, watching _their_ setlist being performed by other groups—and everyone turns on Santana first, the anger doesn’t take long to well up. Brittany can taste it, coppery and ugly on her tongue. She _hates_ when people treat Santana like the bad guy.

Even worse is when Santana _lets_ it happen. Santana knows it was her fault that the setlist got leaked—was right there beside her when that video camera was out—and still, she doesn’t turn on Brittany. She never has before, and Brittany’s not sure what it would take to cut that final cord between them. She’s not sure it could ever snap, no matter how sharp the knife might be.

Santana may get mad sometimes, like about the _sex isn’t dating_ slip-up, and she might hide beneath thick layers of protection, even from Brittany, but she never, _ever_ gives up when it matters.

It’s all Brittany’s fault, that this has gone downhill so quickly, but Santana doesn’t care—and, as far as Brittany’s concerned, that makes her more than a good person. It makes her _great_. It makes her a _hero_.

Not that the others can see it. She can tell from the way Artie keeps popping his jaw, and the upturned nose on Kurt’s face, and the scowl Tina is trying to hide, that they don’t trust Santana. They don’t trust her, they don’t believe in her, and they _definitely_ don’t love her. Not like Brittany does. Not even a little bit.

All they know is Santana’s sass, her rage, her aggression—and that means they expect nothing better from her than a sharp comeback and a intentionally-thrown routine. They _expect_ her to ruin them on purpose, to be a traitor. They expect her to throw her head back and laugh at them, to walk away with a mean joke, never to look back.

They don’t expect guilt. They don’t expect shame. They probably don’t even think she’s capable of things like that.

It makes Brittany sick, seeing that here, in this room, just days after insisting with such venom that these were _Santana’s_ friends, too. _Ours_ , shared, trusted.

No wonder Santana didn’t believe her.

She admits that the whole thing was her fault, and tells them she didn't mean to, didn't know what Coach would do with the song list. It's not entirely true, but it's close enough, and all she can think is that she wants them to _stop_ looking at Santana that way. With disgust. Disbelief. Anger.

It works, for a minute; she stands uncomfortably, hugging herself as they stare at her. They don't seem surprised by her admission, and it strikes her that maybe these people don't expect so much from _her_ either. Not that it matters; before she knows it, Santana is deliberately drawing their fire again, pulling the focus back to her. Telling them the truth—the truth that, until now, only Brittany knew: that she _likes_ Glee. That she _likes_ being here. She doesn’t say she likes any of _them_ —which Brittany is pretty glad for, because that lie would be way too easy to sense—but it's enough to get their attention.

Sort of. Now every member of the group is staring at them _both_ , like they expect the two of them to sprout bat wings and fly, cackling, through the window, or something. Everyone clearly thinks they've finally done it: destroyed the New Directions, once and for all.

Everyone except, strangely enough, for Rachel.

Rachel is loud, and annoying, and Brittany spends a lot of their rehearsal time coming up with new and inventive ways to trick her over the edge of the Grand Canyon, but somehow, it’s _Rachel_ who smiles softly, sadly. It’s Rachel who says, in the simplest set of words Brittany has ever heard leave her mouth, “I believe you.”

Rachel says it, and even though none of them really like Rachel, and none of them even come _close_ to respecting her, that’s somehow the end of the discussion. Rachel believes Santana—believes _both_ of them—and the argument is over. They’re already moving on, trying to come up with a new plan, greeting Finn when he comes through the door out of nowhere. No one sees the look Santana shoots her from across the room— _I told you so_ , and _it’s okay_ , and _we’ve got this_ , all bound together with that signature Santana eyeroll. No one sees what she sees.

They think she’s a bad person, because, even when she’s apologizing, it’s rough. Even when she’s admitting something she’s never admitted to the group before, it sounds angry. It sounds hard around the edges, just like they’d expect, because not a single one of them knows that this is just how Santana _is_. Hard around the edges. Rough. Broken, in her own secret way. Not a single one of them sees how much Santana really _cares_ , even when she doesn’t want to. Nobody gets it, what Santana has given up.

She doesn’t want them to. Brittany knows that, so Brittany doesn’t say a word. The secret—this secret, one even more important than the _sex isn’t dating_ bit—means the world to Santana. This is the secret that keeps her tied together.

It sucks to see them look at her, sneakily, out of the corner of suspicious eyes. It sucks to see how bad they still think she is. It sucks, knowing how _stupid_ they are, and not being able to prove it.

But it doesn’t matter. As Santana comes to stand beside her, a hand finding Brittany’s under the table and squeezing once, she forces herself to push past it. Yes, they’re all idiots, and yes, she’s super mad at each and every one of them for believing Santana is so much less than she is—but this isn’t the time for that. Right now, they need to pull it together and win the _crap_ out of sectionals, and they need to do it on the fly. Beating their expectations can wait.

For now, it's enough to know that _Santana_ gets her the way she gets Santana, even if no one else ever will. For now, maybe having other friends seems kind of overrated--and maybe that's okay.

She's pretty sure Santana isn't going anywhere.  



	8. Give Me Fire (It’ll Burn All Your Fear Away)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Santana doesn't do anything she doesn't want to.

Title: Give Me Fire (It’ll Burn All Your Fear Away)  
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: Through 1x15.  
Summary: Santana doesn't do anything she doesn't want to.  
A/N: [Picture Show 8/14]- "[Close To You](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKdD3JgtckA)"

  


_Other guys will sell you tricks  
Tell you lies to get their fix  
Don’t let them get close to you  
…I still got my eyes on you, baby_

There are times when Brittany is tempted to ask Santana if she actually _likes_ any of the guys she’s been out with over the past year or so. It’s an irrational urge, the kind that makes her head all spinny inside, and she doesn’t _really_ think she should—but it still strikes from time to time. Hard. Bullet-fastball-to-the-sternum hard. She’s pretty sure that’s an unhealthy feeling.  
  
She knows how Santana feels about Puck by now—a little late in the game, since Santana actually dumped Puck on his weird-but-slightly-endearing haircut months before the Babygate craziness dropped—and she agrees. Puck, in Santana’s eyes, is a douchey puppy dog: obnoxious, constantly peeing on things and chewing up her favorite shoes (Brittany _thinks_ this is one of those exaggeration things her English teacher is always droning on about, though she honestly wouldn’t put it past Puck to do that stuff for realsies), but ultimately easy to train. Puck has a foul mouth and _really_ gets in the way when she and Santana are trying to get their mack on, but he’s okay. Mostly.  
  
She knows, too, how Santana feels about Finn; her dislike has never been a secret. Finn’s easy to manipulate, and the kind of moron who _actually believes_ he’s kind of awesome. Which is hilarious, and ridiculous, and makes him almost fun to hang out with sometimes. Except for the part where Santana swiped his V-card, and yeah, it was Brittany’s idea, but only because she was trying to be _helpful_. Not because she would ever want the image of Finn Hudson, hulking and sweaty, anywhere _near_ Santana’s bed.  
  
That’s one of those things that makes her chest hurt to think about too long.  
  
She knows how Santana feels about those two, the ones that actually kind of count as _friends_ , but everybody else…it’s a mystery. How Santana could put up with big jerks and come away smiling. How she could possibly stand them. Or, worse—how she could possibly _enjoy_ spending time with them.  
  
Time and other things.  
  
Brittany wishes she didn’t have to think about this.  
  
She wants to ask sometimes, just to get it off her chest, just to feel the warmth of Santana’s teasing smile against her cheeks as she reassures them both. Santana doesn’t use words like _love_ , exactly, but Brittany is pretty sure that they have something other people don’t have. She doesn’t dare put it out there herself, doesn’t dare admit it even in the privacy of a pillow fort, but she feels it. Way down deep, the way she’s never felt anything else. Santana is hers, and she is Santana’s; there is no room for a third. She trusts in that much.  
  
She trusts, but she can’t ask. Because Santana can be so unpredictable sometimes, with her red-red lipstick and her midnight-black nails, growling and barking commands and doing all those things that Brittany always thought she’d love, back when they only happened in fantasy-land, but now isn’t quite so sure about. Santana can be so damn _hot_ , so damn distracting, but Brittany can’t help but feel mixed up about the whole thing when she remembers the way Santana _used_ to look at her. Eyes round, lips parted, every muscle in her face relaxing as if falling asleep. As if perfectly, absolutely comfortable, just taking Brittany in.  
  
She doesn’t see that look so often anymore. Privately, she nurses the fear that maybe Santana has forgotten how to _give_ that look. That maybe Santana’s shell has finally grown so thick, and so solid, that even Brittany can’t quite pierce through.  
  
She’s so put off by the idea that she can’t even applaud herself for the little joke.  
  
It weighs on her, these battling thoughts that maybe Santana loves her, and maybe she doesn’t know how to love _anyone_ , and maybe it’s just the sex she loves, and couldn’t she love _that_ with just about anybody—around and around, they swirl, until Brittany doesn’t know what to believe anymore.  
  
All she knows, staring at the side of Santana’s head as she scribbles an essay Brittany hasn’t bothered to look at yet, is that she doesn’t want to hear Santana’s answer to her question. Not really. She doesn’t want to watch Santana’s shoulders shrug in that reckless way she has, her lips forming the words, _They’re okay_ , or _They’re hot_ , or _The sex is awesome_. She doesn’t want to _know_ any of that, even though the rest of the world thinks that’s all they do, all they talk about. The rest of the school thinks they’re a couple of sluts who’d get it on with anybody, and maybe they are, but Brittany knows for a solid fact that she doesn’t do it because she actually _cares_. She doesn’t do it because she’s actually _looking_. There’s nothing to look for, with Santana’s thigh bumping against hers, the perpetual awkwardness of her left-handed scribblings jarring Brittany’s doodling purple pen off her notebook.  
  
She tries to dance it out after school, when everyone but the janitor has skipped on to their homes and their dinners, but it doesn’t seem to work. Her legs are pumping, her arms picking up momentum until her whole body becomes a whirling top, skittering to and fro across the smooth wooden floor, and still, her head aches with the question. Why Santana does what she does isn’t the problem; it’s how she feels about it that Brittany can’t pin down.  
  
The sense of not being able to pin Santana down is growing stronger with every passing week, sending her heart into little sputtering panics that Brittany doesn’t know how to control. She was never a panicky person, before this. She never needed to be, not with Santana right there beside her, covering the bases.  
  
It’s really stupid, she tells herself as her knees pop and her shoulders weave, because the boys in this school—boys in general—are so _impossible_ to like. Fun for a little while, maybe, but when it comes to talking to them, or even just laying there in the darkness—what could Santana ever see in that? Even if she were spending time with the sweethearts—the few and far between, the ones Brittany makes out with because she feels bad for them, or because she needs to see someone smile like she’s the only thing in the room—it wouldn’t be like it is with Brittany. Anyway, she knows Santana too well to believe she would ever give the time of day to anybody sweet.  
  
Santana goes for the big, the bad, the bullies who could never touch her, because she doesn’t give them anything _to_ touch. Because everything Santana is feels shrouded in secrets and sarcasm these days.  
  
Even so, even knowing how much Santana is hiding, Brittany worries. Worries that maybe, one of these days, she’s going to change again. Shift her skin until an opening appears—just a little one, just big enough for some dumb jock to muscle his way through. She worries that the old Santana might return, just long enough for somebody to curl inside and tear her apart.  
  
It’s dumb to worry about. It’s dumb to worry at all. Santana knows what she’s doing. Santana has _always_ known better. It makes more sense to worry about other things instead—things like, what happens if Santana keeps giving these boys what they’re looking for? Things like, what happens if Santana decides that’s all she needs now? Things like, what if this, what she has with Brittany, stops being worth it under all the strain, all the mess—

She never used to worry about things like this, before, but Santana has been disappearing more often lately, skating off with Daves, and Jims, and Rogers, and Brittany feels as though she is marathoning just to keep up. It doesn't feel like it used to, like the guys were just taking up space so the world wouldn't talk. It feels colder, somehow. More endless.  
  
Boys lie. It’s what they do, it’s in their nature, and Brittany gets that, but Santana lies, too. Santana lies, and Brittany doesn’t call her on it, but she knows when it’s happening. She can see it in the nervous pull of Santana’s lips, the way her hands tangle together, fingers contorting against one another. Santana has so many tells, and Brittany has each and every one memorized. Santana has told a lot of lies, even without knowing it.  
  
Boys lie to get what they want, and part of Brittany thinks Santana doesn’t know this—or, more likely, doesn’t care. Because if she goes along with their lies, she’s getting what _she_ wants, too, and where does that leave Brittany but here, spinning soundlessly in a tiny room after hours—  
  
Her head is still pounding when she tries to sleep that night, which means it doesn’t work out so well. The questions follow her into the next day, into second period, when Santana slides into the desk behind hers and blows a welcoming breath down the back of her neck. They’re still there, even when her shoulders turn, and her hand catches hold of Santana’s wrist, and suddenly, they’re pelting down the hall together, right in the middle of Mrs. Greenwick’s lecture on banana spiders or something equally ridiculous. Suddenly, they’re running to _their_ room—the art room that everybody should probably know about by now, but apparently don’t—and the door is slamming shut, and Brittany’s voice is echoing inside her own head, shouting the questions she doesn’t dare ask Santana out loud.  
  
 _Do you like them?_  
  
 _Do you know they just want you for your body, for the bragging rights that come with fucking you, and do you even_ care _?_  
  
 _Is this enough for you?_  
  
She wants to ask, but it would be stupid, and Santana would only laugh her off anyway before kissing her soundly, so Brittany shakes her head and beats her to the punch. Her legs propel her forward, pushing Santana until she stumbles, until her back collides with the chalkboard. Her hands are moving already, desperate to get the point across, even if she doesn’t quite know what the point even _is_ anymore.  
  
Is it that she wants Santana to stay here, in this room, forever?  
  
Or that she wants Santana to assure her that the idiots she runs around with are just passing the time, just keeping up appearances?  
  
Or does she just want Santana to stop being so _scared_ all the time, to just kiss her like she means it, like she dreams about it every night, the way Brittany has been doing since they were twelve years old?  
  
It doesn’t matter. It can’t matter, not with Santana’s hands in her hair, Santana’s leg hooked around her waist, Santana’s body crushed between hers and that unused chalkboard. It can’t matter, as long as Santana keeps kissing her, wet and desperate. As long as Santana is right here, hips rolling in time with the sharp licks Brittany can’t seem to stop tracing down the side of her neck. Santana is here, head tilted back, ponytail coming slowly undone, whimpering when Brittany’s teeth snap together a little too hard around the joint of her shoulder. Santana is here, gripping, tugging, palms under a familiar skirt, forcing Brittany closer. Santana is _here_.  
  
Santana is riding against her thigh, and struggling to coax Brittany’s mouth back to her own, and moaning that this is _so great, so good, Britt._ She doesn’t do this with the boys, Brittany thinks. Brittany hopes. Brittany needs to believe that, even on a Tuesday morning, with the weekend so damn far in the distance.  
  
She doesn’t know what Santana wants, or believes, or if love is even an _option_ with them—and God, that _hurts_ to think about—but she knows one thing for sure: Santana would not be here if she didn’t want to be. Santana would not have let herself be tugged from that desk. Santana would not have allowed Brittany to push her up against this chalkboard, sliding a leg between hers, kissing so fervently, she’s half-afraid something inside her will break. Santana would not be propped here, one hand splayed against her ass, her body following Brittany's hasty, stuttering lead, if she did not want it the way Brittany does.  
  
Santana doesn't do anything she doesn't want to.  
  
She doesn’t know if Santana likes those guys, or believes the lies they tell her, or if—someday—Santana will take her hand and let her know that someone else has done what Brittany has been working at for years. She doesn’t know if that will ever happen. She can’t bring herself to ask.  
  
All she can do is hold Santana here, bucking against her thigh, each moan pooling in the base of Brittany’s belly, and kiss her, kiss her, kiss her until all of the questions retreat. Until she stops thinking, just for a little while, that maybe being close to Santana isn’t all its cracked up to be these days. Until she stops thinking at all.


	9. I Only Wanna Move Like You Move

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She gets jealous. She gets jealous _of Brittany_.

Title: I Only Wanna Move Like You Move  
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: Through early S2.  
Summary: She gets jealous. She gets jealous _of Brittany_.  
A/N: [Picture Show 9/14]- "[Hooray For Hollywood](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEqIziPQ1zs)"

  
_Read my lips  
I’ll get my kicks  
You’ll get your fix  
And we’ll go out dancing_

She gets jealous. Not of the people Brittany’s with—she’s not _allowed_ , with the way she throws her own self around these days—or of the other kids in New Directions, the ones who don’t have to obsess over filling some _dude-banging quota_ each time they rest their heads upon Brittany’s shoulder. She gets jealous _of Brittany_.

She isn’t proud of it.

It’s a weird kind of jealousy, too, not so straightforward as when Quinn pushes her buttons—although, hah, with Blondie reaching the tail end of that final trimester, it’s pretty hard to remember what there ever was to be envious of in the first place—or when Berry gets a crap-ton of solos she didn’t even know she wanted. It’s maybe _the_ weirdest kind of jealousy, because she feels it in the pit of her stomach, rolling itself up into a hot little ball like jealousy tends to do—and then, without warning, it just sort of… _melts_.

Brittany has her melting.

It’s unacceptable.

The thing is, Brittany can _move_. This isn’t news to Santana, who has been around for every lesson, conditioned to be wowed after every class let out. She knows Brittany can move, has the memory of her swaying hips and jolting limbs etched into a strange little place on her heart. Brittany dances, and Santana comes running—that’s how it has always been.

The dance got her onto the Cheerios. The dance grabbed some modicum of respect from the Glee-ful idiots they’re still putting up with. The dance, if she keeps it up, is going to get her into a really, really _banging_ school someday.

The dance _is_ Brittany, so it feels a little insane to have this kind of reaction to it now.

Still, the thing burbling up in Santana’s gut won’t take no for an answer, and suddenly, she’s seven again, and panic-stricken. Because this is _another_ thing she doesn’t want to feel, doesn’t have the time or the room for, and in the back of her mind it occurs to her that one girl should not have the power to make her quite so dizzy.

It’s getting harder every day, to pretend things are fine. It was hard to begin with—when Puck saw them that first time, and then, after, when Puck started to see more and more of Quinn instead. When the time came to dump Puck on his greasy head and it _still_ wasn’t Brittany she could go to. When they joined New Directions and all they really had was each other, and all she wanted to do was go home and crawl into Brittany’s bed, and couldn’t. When they _stayed_ , against all odds, and won, and _still_ , were not accepted—not that she wants to be, of course, but the point still stands: Brittany is all she has, all she has ever been able to rely on, and the best she can offer is a stretched-forth pinky, or a smile, or a hug. All she can offer is a head nestled on Brittany’s shoulder, like it will banish the heaving memory of Finn Hudson working on her, in her, like it will banish everything she has done to get the gold in this school and _still_ —still nothing.

And now she sits here, eyes glued to the willowy stretch of Brittany’s left leg as it pivots in time to the music, her body cracking like some seamless, satin-skinned whip. Feeling, of all things, _jealous_. Because Brittany seems so happy when she works her way across the choir room floor, hand in Mike Chang’s, sneakers squealing out a high-pitched ballad between them. Brittany seems so happy, and all of them are laughing and applauding, and when has Santana _ever_ seen a response like _that_? Her own _parents_ don’t look that enthusiastic to see her perform, much less the self-affirmed frenemies she’s secured in this pathetic little place.

She feels jealous, but not hateful. Never hateful. Brittany is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen, even now, when she can’t let herself feel it. When she can’t let Brittany _know_. It doesn’t stop the signal beaming into her brain, a twenty-four/seven routine: Brittany is beautiful. Brittany is perfect. Brittany is everything she has ever loved in this world—except that isn’t acceptable, because, _remember the golden rule, Santana._ Remember, and push on.

She wants to dance the way Brittany does, she thinks one day, eyes skimming the careless beats of pale fingers across the piano top. Brittany doesn’t even know she’s doing it half the time, crafting her own silent music, and Santana wants that. Maybe it would make things easier, to have that outlet to pump into, to pick up her feet and _disappear_ for an hour.  
Maybe. Maybe not. But Brittany seems to smile brighter, seems lighter of limb, seems to kiss her with a feathery breathlessness that Santana hasn’t been able to tap into since—

_Girls don’t marry princesses._

_Sex is not dating._

—okay, she can’t say she even knows what that feels like, if truth’s the aim here.

Brittany is ethereal, angelic, cutting a swath through each tempo as if she had built it from scratch, and Santana can feel herself racing to keep up. Struggling through the motions, her chest aching, sweat blazing beneath her clothes. Dancing next to Brittany wrecks havoc on everything that she is, from the acid scream stacking up high within each muscle to the slow burn between her thighs. Dancing next to Brittany, she knows the difference is obvious. Palpable. Everyone is thinking it.

Brittany is grace, beauty, the assurance that, if she chooses, she _will_ do something with her life. She _will_ get out.

Santana always believed it would happen together, a two-shot ‘til the end of time, but ever since sleeping with Finn…and dealing with Puck’s nervous hair-related breakdown…and playing the bitch card until her teeth grit with the sheer stupidity of her _not_ -friends…

She wonders, watching Brittany twirl, if she’s been too busy picking up pieces of something that hasn’t quite reached its breaking point yet to follow the path Brittany treads. She wonders if maybe she’s running out of time, if maybe she’s missed too many steps, bungled too many easy shifts in direction, to really have a chance of catching up again.

Not that she believes Brittany would leave her behind—not on purpose. There’s still a light in Brittany’s eyes that Santana has never pulled from anyone else before, still a gentle exhilaration in her kiss, in every caress, that sparks hot flame in Santana’s belly. There is still the real-and-true _Brittany factor_ holding her here, keeping her in place, but she can’t help but wonder about realities. Whether or not there might be an expiration date on feelings like those. Whether or not Brittany will get tired of waiting.

Because, if she’s honest with herself, she can’t swear that the _waiting_ will ever pan out. She doesn’t see how it could. She doesn’t see how this tower could go on and on, a new unstable layer shelved up every few months, and _not_ come crashing back to earth.

There’s no winning, for this thing she has with Brittany—and Brittany, bless her beautiful blue eyes, doesn’t seem to _know_ that. Brittany touches her with the quiet assurance that waiting is worth it, that _Santana_ is worth it. Brittany touches her with the same grace that keeps her afloat as she dances her way into the hearts of everyone who meets her, and Santana has absolutely no idea of how to give that back.

She’s jealous, sitting here, devouring Brittany’s every spin, every methodical arch of her back, every rake of slender fingers through loose, shimmering hair. She’s jealous, because Brittany doesn’t seem to get the truth. Because Brittany can dance her way out of anything. Because Brittany doesn’t seem to _feel_ it like Santana does. Brittany thinks loving her is enough, and Santana can’t possibly believe that’s true. She hasn’t for a long, long time.

Brittany is going to be famous someday, a fixture in the minds of millions, and Santana…Santana can’t even figure out how to own Hick-Town, Ohio. Santana can’t even figure out how to make this snot dribble of a town her bitch. Santana can’t…

She lets herself imagine sometimes—once in a while, no more than that—what it would be like to go out dancing with Brittany. To push their way through the door of some rotting little club, the best Lima has to offer, and shut it all off. The looks. The stares. The jeering men and the disgusted women. She lets herself imagine what it might be like, if she could just _trust_ , the way Brittany does. To be out on that floor in Brittany’s arms, letting herself go, letting her hips tell all the secrets she’s been holding onto since ninth grade. Letting herself move, rather than think, until her body meets with Brittany’s and sinks, possessed by Brittany’s smile, by the light way her hand breezes down Santana’s cheek. Letting herself believe, for just that short span of moments, that all there is in the world is Brittany’s legs sweeping them across the floor, Brittany’s arms around her waist, Brittany molded to her back, lips to her ear, whispering things Santana hasn’t allowed herself to hear in far, far too long.

She lets herself imagine sometimes, and it hurts. It hurts more than Brittany’s eyes when she regales the Cheerios with yet another story of another grimy roll in another downbeat Chevy. It hurts more than the two-syllable _Ok_ text Brittany sends when she’s blown off for a “necessary” date with some loser. It hurts more than slipping out of bed at three in the morning, because it’s a Wednesday, because she can’t bring herself to live in a fantasy world outside of their weekends together.

It hurts, to be in love with your best friend and not to admit it, not to accept it, not to let it in. She can only imagine how much more it would hurt, to let it rip apart her whole life.

She’s so revoltingly jealous, that Brittany doesn’t seem to feel it like she does. Revoltingly jealous, that Brittany can continue dancing, continue making _friends_ —last week, Santana even spotted her between Tina and Mercedes, chattering on about some movie like they’d joined the Besties for Life club or some shit. Brittany, it seems, is carrying on with life as she has always known it, while Santana…

Santana needs to kick it into high gear. With Quinn back on the squad, with Glee solos up in the air, with Junior Prom resting at the end of this excruciatingly long tunnel, there’s too much to take care of. Too much that can’t afford to be slacked off on, too much to be distracted by—

It happens before she’s ready for it, so suddenly that she hears herself squeak as she’s wrenched from her chair. Brittany’s arm is around her waist, hand prying Santana’s off her hip and clutching it tight. Brittany is grinning, and spinning them both around, and, really, Santana can’t _begin_ to figure her out.

“What are you doing?” she hisses, fingers flexing instinctively around Brittany’s hip. “Why are you—“

“You looked sad,” Brittany whispers against her hair, too softly for anyone else to notice. Not that these self-absorbed assholes are paying them a speck of attention, Santana realizes. Brittany has wheeled them right into a corner, far from all but the mutest of bando dweebs.

She chokes on a sputter, unable to think quickly enough to lie. “I’m—“

“Sad,” Brittany repeats. “I know.”

“How?” Santana asks weakly, the resolve in her legs weakening until it is only the force of Brittany’s arms holding her up. Blue eyes spark beneath a flickering lightbulb, Brittany’s smile gentle.

“You never used to stare at me like that when I danced,” she says simply. “Like it bummed you out to watch.”

Santana doesn’t have anything to say to that. Nothing Brittany could help with, anyway. How do you tell your best friend that, just by _dancing_ , you can see her spiraling slowly out of reach?

“I’m fine,” she swears, though her eyes are closed and her heart thunders beneath her Cheerio top. Brittany makes a little noise, the way she always does when Santana has said something obviously ridiculous.

She moves to pull away, and Brittany’s hand grips hers all the tighter. Hips fit against hips, guiding her back and forth in a small circle. Santana peers up at her, uneasy.

“What?”

“Stay,” Brittany commands, looking determinedly away from her, at the wall. “Dance with me.”

She wants to blurt _no_ , wants to pull away and stomp back to her seat, but Schuester is late, and Hudson is slamming away on his precious drum kit, and Artie appears to be trying his best to roll over the tips of Kurt’s shoes without him noticing. No one is paying the least bit of attention to them. No one cares.

This may be the closest they’ll ever get to that club, to that dance floor. Santana sighs.

“Fine,” she grumbles, like she has never wanted this, like watching Brittany with Mike doesn’t light her up with this exact desire. Like a part of the jealousy has nothing to do with this very urge, to push in close and never let go.

Brittany hums, her feet moving so subtly that Santana can’t help but follow. “We should do this someday,” she murmurs, almost too soft for Santana to catch. “We’d shine.”

They would, Santana allows herself a split second to think—or, at least, _Brittany_ would. Brittany always does.

Santana doesn’t know what she’s here for, in comparison to _that_.

“Okay, Britt,” she says at last, like she believes it, like her chest isn’t cracking with the weight of all the _nevers_ and _fat chances_ she’s been nursing for two years. “Sounds good.”

When Brittany dips her unexpectedly, grinning the grin she’s been reserving for telling the group just how much more talented she is than Rachel Berry, Santana can’t help but smile back. There goes that hot little ball in her chest again, melting away, dripping haphazardly down her insides like it was never there at all. Brittany is maddening this way.

She shouldn’t be giving Brittany false hope. She shouldn’t be this foolish. But spinning here, with the pressure of Brittany’s warmth flush against her, she can’t help but wish.

The fact that Brittany actually believes in things like this—like _wishes_ —makes her more jealous than ever. .  



	10. There Was A Part Of Me (That Never Left A Part Of You)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What could you break at sixteen, that can’t be fixed in the long run?

Title: There Was A Part Of Me (That Never Left A Part Of You)  
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: Through 2x4.  
Summary: What could you break at sixteen, that can’t be fixed in the long run?  
A/N: [Picture Show 10/14]- "[Still Young](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-rRRLNgI94)"

  
_Can we kiss like we do in my head?  
Can we dance like we do on my bed?  
Ohh, like we’re still young_

She hasn’t spoken to Brittany in two weeks.

It makes her sound—fuck, _feel_ —a little codependent, getting all freaked out about something like that. It’s okay not to be in constant contact with somebody. Hell, her mother has been pressuring her to do this very thing— _Get a little distance, Santana_ —for a long time now. It always made her uneasy, seeing how much time her only daughter spent in the company of such a “lovely little flower child.” Santana supposes she can understand that, from a mother’s perspective.

But her mother, God bless her, doesn’t have the first _clue_ about Brittany. And she certainly doesn’t understand this thing they’ve got, the two of them. She never could. Santana isn’t even sure she fully gets it, herself.

Which might explain why they haven't spoken in so long.

She can’t weigh it out properly, can’t quite see the place where the lines join up the way they’re supposed to. There are so many colors with Brittany, so many unexpected flashed of light, and it always leaves her feeling a little stunned. A little shattered. Everything is so pretty where Brittany’s concerned, which ought to be a good thing, except…

Santana’s maybe not so amazing with keeping pretty things as pretty as they’re meant to be.

She winces, remembering how heartily she'd pushed Brittany away. The cliches that spiraled off her tongue at the time felt like they’d been crafted by somebody so very different—somebody who hasn’t grown up racing through town with Brittany’s hand clamped around her own. Somebody who doesn’t know what Brittany sounds like when she’s choking back laughter in church, or how damaging the echo of her sobs can be when she jolts from a nightmare. All that crap about food digestion and fucking _lizards_ —that shit came from someone who has never nestled close to Brittany in the abandoned baseball dugout three blocks over, watching the rain trickle down on a neglected, browning diamond.

That shit came from someone who has never felt what it feels like to hold Brittany’s face in cupped hands, their mouths pressed together so tentatively, Santana half-believes the world around them might shatter like sparkling stained glass at any moment.

And yet, it _was_ her who said it. It had to have been. Brittany wouldn’t have listened to it from anybody else, wouldn’t have bought that ticket so easily. Santana’s the only person Brittany has ever trusted that implicitly, perfectly willing to accept truth and lie without blinking once. Santana’s the only person who has ever _really_ held that kind of power.

Just like Brittany has always had over her.

And she just had to go and fucking blow it.

It doesn’t surprise her, that she’d find a way to fuck it all up eventually. Pretty things don’t last long in her anxiety-greased hands; sooner or later, she is _always_ going to drop that snow-globe. Between the power trip, and the jealousy, and the struggling to stay on top, regardless of the rest of the world...it's a wonder she hadn't done it sooner. And, really, is that her fault? She’s _sixteen_ —so young, such a child, really. She likes to playact something fierce, pasting on the lipstick and coating her whole head in hairspray, but in the end…

Brittany never thought of her as an adult, and maybe Santana sort of resented that a little. She has put so much damn effort into growing up as fast as she knows how, cutting all the corners, writing down shortcuts on the back of her hand. Getting every little thing as right as she possibly can. She has put so much effort into looking _capable_ —a grown woman, strutting around on the television with her skimpy outfits and rage-cocked eyebrow—and then, just like that, here comes Brittany to knock it all down.

Brittany doesn’t care about the tower she has been meticulously building since before they even got to the high school level. Brittany doesn’t care about any of that—not where Santana’s concerned. Hell, Brittany doesn't even care about the fallout from The Secret anymore, not really. She's bigger than that.

Brittany cares about light, and laughing under the lunch table in the middle of a food fight, and kissing with a slick, heated frenzy beneath the bleachers when they’re meant to be learning about the Middle Ages. Brittany cares about doing duets together in front of everyone, about twirls and dips and things that are probably a little too juvenile for both of them now—but somehow, those things never seem too juvenile when they’re doing them together. As long as Brittany is there, those things almost make _sense_.

But it’s been two weeks without her, two weeks of not saying a damn word to one another in the halls, or at practice, or even in a mindless text sent before bed. Before this all started to come down, Santana couldn’t have remembered the last time she fell asleep without Brittany’s goodnight message burned into her phone’s screen. Or, for that matter, the last time she woke to anything other than a chirpy good-morning phone call. Brittany is part of her routine in an unshakable, patently recognizable way, and Santana really doesn’t care to see that change.

But so much for _that_ , because look at her now: standing against her locker, twirling the combination lock around and around, the numbers completely eluding her. She can see them out of the corner of her eye: the brown corduroy of his pants set against her blood-red skirt, glimmering unnaturally bright above chrome wheels and faded yellow racing gloves. She can see them, even when they’re nowhere to be found, and she can’t for her life figure out how to shut that off.

Teeth gritted, head resting against cool, tarnished metal, she forces herself to swallow the dizzying impulse to turn and run. Running never gets you anywhere, she knows, and anyway, what does she have to be so sorry about? She just told Brittany the _truth_ —sort of. In her own way. In a way that maybe doesn’t resemble anything true in the slightest.

Which, knowing Brittany, was probably pretty obvious.

But who cares? Why should she apologize for that? This thing with Brittany was getting out of hand anyway, the cup long overdue for a good, hearty washing. There were too many wishes, too many acts to a play that didn't add up. How was she supposed to keep the ball in the air when nothing about it even made _sense_. They didn’t have a name for the things they did, or a plan for keeping it all going long-term. They didn’t have _anything_ , except smiles, and inside jokes, and the warm, steady beat of Brittany’s heart thudding against her bare chest. And hope. Always that blind, idiotic hope.

She can’t pretend she doesn’t miss that. She wishes so badly for the strength to wash it away, the opportunity to turn her head and look at something else. A painting that’s not so dry, not so _final_ , maybe. Everything about Brittany has felt final since that very first clumsy hug, that stupid green teddy bear, a lifetime ago.

Santana doesn’t know how to handle things like _final_. She’s _sixteen_. She’s a glass still filling up, with more open space than there is substance. She has absolutely every notion of what she wants out of life, and absolutely _no_ idea how to grasp any of it. And, as much as she hates to be anything like the mouth-breathers with whom she’s forced to occupy these halls, she’s pretty sure that shit is _normal_. She’s sixteen years old. What else could anyone expect from her?

Final is for adults—real ones, not play actors dancing around on a stage without visible end. Final is for people who know what the ever-living fuck they’re doing on this earth. For her…

It’s stupid to get bogged down with all of this now, when she knows there’s nothing she can do about it. She knows she should be thinking about something else— _anything_ else. The next song to sing, the next barb to throw, the next idiot to bring back to earth. She should be focused on anything but the absurdly heavy weight that is _final_. Anything but the sheer conflict that is Brittany.

She can’t shut it off.

She can’t seem to forget.

It's been building to this from that first horror-struck moment, meeting Puck's eyes across that parking lot. From that first weekend, tangled in a fantasy world within her bed. From that first spark of realization that she was second-best, that she'd _always_ be second-best, to everyone except the one person she couldn't choose, couldn't accept, because _girls don't marry princesses, Santana_. It's been building for months, for years; every spin, every kick, every hasty, fiery kiss in the art room, every broken nod on a Sunday evening. It's been building, and she's spent _so_ much time feeling _sorry_ about it, feeling too old for this shit. Too old at sixteen. It's ridiculous.

All of this--this _mess--_ is for adults, and Santana knows for a fact she is anything _but_ , so why does it feel so much like she’s somehow reached a turning point she doesn’t remember agreeing to? Standing here, the back of her neck prickling with the heat from Brittany’s gaze—because, even after all of this, Brittany is always looking at her, always waiting for something Santana just can’t figure out how to give—she can’t help but feel ancient. Worn out. Like she has walked a few steps further than her body was ever willing to go, and maybe now there isn’t a clear way back.

_If_ she really wants to go back.

That’s just another thing she can’t spell out.

She pushes herself off from the locker, reminding herself to breathe. To walk away—not too fast, so as to keep from looking like a coward, but not exactly dragging her feet, either. To shut her eyes as she turns the corner, pushing the images that well up, one right after the other, in her brain.

She _misses_ Brittany. There’s no way around that fact, no way to pretend it’s any less than it is. She misses the press of slender fingers against her jawbone, the rake of Brittany’s tongue across her bottom lip. She misses the way the mattress bounds and leaps beneath them as they tumble onto it, already scrambling to make up for all the time they lose at school each day. At practice. In public.

What does it say about their relationship, that so much of what she really misses is confined behind a statuesque, bolted door?

She misses Brittany, misses everything from the scent of fresh nail polish to the drumming sensation in her stomach when long legs tangle with her own, but what is she supposed to do about it? She has already punched a hole in their formerly-solid brick wall. She’s said too much, made claims she can’t for her life back up. _I’m not in love with you._ There has never been an untruth more enormous, with weight more crushing, and Santana can’t figure out how to take a thing like that back. How do you push an elephant back into a suitcase, anyway?

The idea of apologizing has occurred to her more than once, the notion of giving a big, hearty _fuck you_ to everything she's worked for until now. When it rains, droplets cavorting and swimming across the windowpane, Santana can't help but stare outside and think: _I could go now. To her house, to that back porch, to where I've walked away too many times. I could._ She sees herself, standing there in a sopping sweater, shivering under lank hair and broken eyes, open and stupid and in love. She sees herself screaming, _I didn't mean it. I take it all back. I'm sorry_.

But waiting doesn't last forever; she's known that. Wishes don't come true. And Brittany isn't just sitting around, twiddling her thumbs anymore. Brittany has--

A flash of blue eyes; she’s stepped the wrong way, angled herself too near the wheelchair ramp by the gym. A bad move. Dangerous, this week. How long can she really keep doing this, keeping her distance from the one person she so desperately needs to cling to?

Too old, too young—what is she, anyway? What is she _supposed_ to be at the end of the day, knowing what she knows about Brittany, about herself, about this stupid ugly town? Who is she supposed to be, and what the _hell_ is she supposed to say to make everything feel right again? An apology won’t do the trick. Like Brittany would even buy it.

Like Santana could sell something like that after all of this.

It can’t stay this way for long, she assures herself, banking a hard left away from the danger zone. It’s been a two-for-one deal for too long with them, always the Brittany-and-Santana show. No one else lasts. Nothing can stop it. It’s the only steady thing she’s got, no matter how stupid she can be about it. Sooner or later, this will smooth itself out.

After all, she’s only sixteen.

What could you break at sixteen that can’t be fixed, somewhere down the line?  



	11. So When You Get That Feeling (Keep Dancing, Keep Dancing)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now it’s like Brittany is this weird song in her head, the kind that gets stuck there with its thrumming beat and its repeating lyrics, until you wake up in the middle of the night singing the chorus over and over again.

Title: So When You Get That Feeling (Keep Dancing, Keep Dancing)  
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: Through 2x15.  
Summary: Now it’s like Brittany is this weird song in her head, the kind that gets stuck there with its thrumming beat and its repeating lyrics, until you wake up in the middle of the night singing the chorus over and over again.  
A/N: [Picture Show Project 11/14]- "[I Am The DJ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYBnuNWAEX0)"

  


_Never mind, I hear you all the time  
Lovely, and amazing, and completely underwhelmed  
Tell me why you switched to satellite  
The record’s in your hands, please play my song again_

Putting your heart on the line, it turns out, feels exactly as awesome as a stallion-kick to the sternum. It feels like losing every game you’ve ever played, like rolling over to find the four, strong walls of your bedroom have vanished, replaced by windswept desert. It feels like every grungy, lonely love song, playing to an audience of one at four in the morning, red lights rushing by.

It feels like the _reason_ she never wanted to go here, and goddammit, if she didn’t have it right the first time. But Brittany wanted…and Brittany gets what Brittany wants. Most of the time.

Just not always in a timely manner.

Santana’s trying not to think about it too much. About the fact that she has spent this week rapidly unwinding the thick ball of string between them, all at once. About the fact that she has admitted—out _loud_ , in front of a fucking _teacher_ (sort of)—the whole _kind of liking girls_ thing. About the fact that she got up on a stool and _sang_. To her best friend. In front of everybody.

As if leaving the Cheerios behind wasn’t enough of an epic change for the year.

It seems like the last time she blinked, everything just sort of started…falling down around her. One minute, her head is held high, her shoulders thrown back, the mask rooted firmly in place--and then, all of a sudden, the warm red polyester is gone, and so is the automatic status, and the sanity, and _Brittany_. Although, to be fair, Brittany has been gone a lot longer than that stupid uniform. Brittany has been gone ever since she fucked it all up, all those months ago, and though they started talking again pretty soon after the fallout—talking and _other things_ , things Brittany doesn’t seem so happy about anymore; Santana knows the guilt weighs heavy on her mind, even though she pretends otherwise, even though she pretends to buy the lies Santana tries to offer—it’s not the same. It hasn’t been the same in a long time. Not since watching her spend a wedding dancing with a chair, and Christmas praying for working legs, and Valentine’s Day in the lap of a suspenders-sporting cripple.

Santana has been trying to hold it together, trying to remind herself that things change, and maybe that’s the natural order or whatever, but—this is _Brittany._ Brittany, who never used to cry after one of their _get drunk and steal away to a private corner_ exercises. Brittany, whose eyes never used to stare through the wall of Santana’s bedroom on a Saturday night. Brittany, who used to light up when she saw Santana coming, no matter what.

Brittany’s been trying to pretend like things haven’t changed so drastically, but it’d be stupid of them to deny it. And that fact—that simple sense of losing her best friend to some idiot _boy_ —is what pushed Santana to do the unthinkable. To forget the golden rule, to forget that she’s never going to be allowed to marry her motherfucking princess, and just _say_ it.

She cringes away from the words in her head, the tearful, heartfelt echoes that seem to reverberate through her locker, through the sleeves of her favorite jacket, through the very infrastructure of the goddamn school. It’s everywhere now, and she can’t get away.

Confessions of love, it turns out, are exactly the sort of thing that follow you to your grave. Santana sort of wishes she had figured that out before all of this started.

But it’s too late for that, too late for running or backtracking—though God knows she’s trying—and now she’s got the added weight of Brittany’s sadness on top of her guilt. Which is just fucking perfect.

She wishes she could bat it away like it doesn’t matter, the way she did when Puckerman went balls to the wall crazy for the great white whale. She wishes for it to feel the same in her head as that brush-off, as the bullshit from Hudson’s _she’s not worth it_ crack, or Berry’s _working on a pole_ bit. She wishes the loss of Brittany—the way Brittany has always been—felt the same as the loss of Quinn’s respect, or even the way her mother started shaking her head when Sylvester called the house to insist that “Jugs McMexican keep her grubby implants out of my locker room.” She wishes the loss of Brittany could be just another coin in the purse, just another domino to knock down and prove wrong.

Except, of course, Brittany has never been just another _anything_. And it is getting increasingly difficult for Santana to fall back on a memory that doesn’t revolve around all those years of really getting each other. All the years of Brittany’s warm hand in her own, of hearing Brittany’s fevered, determined whisper against her skin in the darkness: _I’m here. I’m not going anywhere_.

Serves her right, she thinks now as she bangs her head lightly against the cafeteria table, for ever believing something like that could be real.

It’s her own damn fault for being so scared all the time, for taking Abuela’s advice to heart at five years old, for letting herself believe that Brittany would never get bored, or get mad, or get _love_ from somebody else. It was foolish, and ignorant, and so beyond selfish—and, though Santana has no problem being selfish most of the time, she kind of hates herself for this instance.

Everyone makes fun of Brittany for believing in Santa Claus, but _Santana’s_ the one with the wacked-out notions of reality. Santana’s the one who should have known better by now.

She’s been trying to push through it, trying to pretend like it never happened. Like she never opened her big mouth and tried to Stevie Nicks her way back into Brittany’s number-one slot. Like she never stood there in that hallway, eyes darting, wetting her lips with a painfully dry tongue every few seconds just to keep from passing out. Like she never felt that hazy blackout moment of euphoria when Brittany replied that _of course_ , she loved her. Of course. Like it had never been a question. And then, not a second later, the hammer came smashing down, and Santana had all but ran away, and now—

Now it’s like Brittany is this weird song in her head, the kind that gets stuck there with its thrumming beat and its repeating lyrics, until you wake up in the middle of the night singing the chorus over and over again. Now it’s like Brittany is this record in her head that won’t shut off, no matter how many times Santana visualizes heaving the whole jukebox off a balcony. Brittany keeps playing, and playing, and all Santana wants is to rewind this last week and take it back.

It sucked, the way it was before, but at least it was a manageable kind of suck. The kind of suck where she could lie through her teeth, put all her emotion into an orgasm, into straddling Brittany on one of the few Saturdays they’ve had left and pretending she didn’t see the sadness in dark blue eyes. It was the kind of suck she’s been handling since they entered high school and started letting other people get in the way. Since the _everybody talks_ principle shattered their bright little bubble.

It sucked, and it was exhausting pretending it didn’t, but Santana could do it. She was _good_ at it. Fuck, not like she hadn’t gotten more than her share of practice.

Now that she’s said it, though, and turned the pressure in her heart from a dull ache to a steady, shrieking song, it sucks more than she could ever have imagined. No one even _knows_ about her yet (no one outside of the New Directions, anyway, who are still a band of utter assholes, but, strangely, the kind of assholes she doesn’t so much loathe), so no one’s looking at her in the hallways, but it turns out maybe the being found out part wasn’t the worst thing about being in love with Brittany. The worst thing, it turns out, is knowing—without doubt, without question—that Brittany is the song in her head that will never stop playing. The one whose words and melody she has been singing all her life, the record which—despite all scratches, all age—plays on and on.

The worst part is knowing that she, in turn, is not Brittany’s song. Not the only one, anyway, and definitely not the one she’s choosing to play. Where it feels as though Santana has only this one aged record, set on an infinite loop inside a jukebox she can’t quite bring herself to sell, Brittany seems to have a whole damn iPod at her disposal. Brittany can switch albums at will, can rotate through whatever songs she likes—and, unlike Santana, Brittany seems to know how to stop singing the same broken song in the middle of the night.

Santana is pretty sure her song is still in there somewhere, buried under longing and regret and the sheer anxiety that this change won’t be a permanent one. She’s pretty sure Brittany hasn’t given up on her completely, because if there is one thing Brittany has promised in that forever sort of way, it’s that she is Santana’s. That she _loves_ Santana. Even if she can’t love her the way Santana needs.

Even if she’s too busy loving some four-eyed kid in a wheelchair, and Santana _wishes_ she could hate Artie so much more than she does. She wishes she could find it in her to run his legless ass over with her car, to send him soaring off the highest staircase. She wishes he wasn’t such a decent guy, despite all his moronic behavior, and that Brittany didn’t smile at him the way she does. Brittany doesn’t smile that way at people who don’t deserve it.

Except Santana. Santana’s not sure she’s ever deserved the gifts Brittany has spent years giving.

Even so, deserving or not, she can’t bring herself to let go. She _wants_ to, of course, because who the fuck wouldn’t after being shot down like _that_? She wants to, but there is just something about Brittany—about her smile, about the sway of her hips and the crook of her finger, about the way her hand still finds Santana’s sometimes, when she’s not paying attention, when she forgets where they are. There is just something about Brittany’s song that was made to last, as if every note was crafted specifically to fall from Santana’s tongue.

It’s dumb, to have believed Brittany would wait for her when she never had the intention of giving in, and it’s even _dumber_ to believe that Brittany will come back to her eventually. It’s maybe the dumbest thing in a lifetime of seriously idiotic mistakes, and Santana _really_ has to stop beating her head against this table, because Tina is starting to give Mike this look, like she’s about to call psych services or something.

“What?” she snaps. Tina bucks back from the table, eyes baby-rabbit wide.

“N-nothing.” It’s almost funny, how Girl Chang only stutters now when Santana’s around to scare the living shit out of her. Almost funny enough to make the rest of her situation seem not so horrendously dire.

Except she’s in love with a girl who’s in love with somebody else, and Santana’s not sure the definition of “dire” stretches much further than that.

Mike looks at her with creepily wise eyes, and Santana finds herself a breath away from asking his opinion on the subject. Mike knows Brittany, more or less, and he technically already has a history of stealing girls from Artie. Mike might have some insight.

But then, worrying about other people’s opinions is sort of what got her here in the first place. She settles for sipping at her milk carton, pretending Team Asian isn’t gaping at her the way they are.

Brittany is the song in her head that will never stop playing, so maybe she should stop wasting so much energy trying to change that fact and start working on a way to pull herself back to the top of Brittany’s personal Billboard. Maybe, instead of weeping into her chocolate milk and inducing mild brain damage, she should be fixating on a way out of this mess—for good this time, not just another seedy patch-up job. This isn’t something that can be fixed with sex and a smile anymore. They are so far beyond that now.

Brittany isn’t playing her song on repeat just now, but Santana still sees her dancing to it, when she thinks no one is watching. Santana still sees the familiar curve of her back, the familiar sweep of her arms, the glow behind her smile that has only _ever_ belonged to Santana. It doesn’t happen often—here, there, when Brittany shuts out the world and falls into the beat instead—but it _happens_. And maybe Brittany hasn’t left Artie yet, and maybe she never will, but the fact that she is still dancing to the song— _their_ song—means something. Something Santana’s not sure she’s entirely ready to hear, though she may not have a choice.

Brittany still loves her. Brittany is _so yours, proudly so_. Brittany just has to find a reason to play Santana’s song again, like she always did before _I’m not in love with you_ and _I’m just here because_ excuses, excuses, excuses. Santana just needs to remind her.

She slams the carton back onto the table, hard enough to fire drips of chocolate onto Tina’s knuckles and the green sleeve of Mike’s shirt, and grins. “Thanks, kids,” she tells them breezily, with a confidence she doesn’t entirely feel, and pushes to her feet.

This sucks, the whole breadth of it, and she still wishes she hadn’t said those stupid words in that stupid choked voice—but she did. It’s done, it’s over, it’s out there. She can’t keep walking blind anymore. There's still a tiny glimmer of hope, but she’s running out of time.

As she strides from the table, she hears Tina’s confused voice reply, “You’re—welcome? What even—“

“Don’t,” Mike tells her calmly. It’s nearly enough to make Santana laugh. Clueless bitches.

She doesn’t need Chang’s expert advice on getting Brittany back. No one knows Brittany even _half_ as well as she does. She doesn’t need anybody else.

She’s already said _I love you_. She’s already done the hardest part.

All that’s left now is to get Brittany back to humming her song.  



	12. Never Trust A Town (To Tell You Who You Are)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a reason this has been so hard, and Santana loving her just isn’t it.

Title: Never Trust A Town (To Tell You Who You Are)  
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: Through 2x19.  
Summary: There’s a reason this has been so hard, and Santana loving her just isn’t it.  
A/N: [Picture Show 12/14]- "Show" (Hey, so, there are literally no YouTube videos with this song. Which blows, since it's one of the best songs on the album, according to my ears. But I'll link to it whenever it becomes available.)

  
_I’m gonna love you til it kills me  
Love you til I’m out of my head  
How’s that for devotion, baby?  
Nobody here still believes in ‘til death’_

Artie isn’t a bad guy. In fact, if Brittany had to pick somebody at this school—somebody other than Sam Evans, whose scary mouth makes him a hell of a kisser, and Mike Chang, who is sweet, even though his mom tried to give her a chicken foot once in fifth grade—to wear the Best Guy at McKinley badge, she thinks Artie would be it. Artie is what her mom would call “well-meaning”; he really cares about her, really wants to make her happy. For a while, she let herself believe he could, and it was nice. Nice dates. Nice sex. Nice to have a ride to her classes, and nice to have someone who never rushed off in the middle of a make-out session muttering about popularity, or Noah Puckerman, or lizards.

Brittany liked having something nice, but the thing with nice is, it doesn’t last too long. Not on its own. Nice isn’t the same as _love_ —the real kind, the kind that squirms down deep in your belly whenever you catch a flash of silver bracelet or dark hair darting around the corner.

It was hard, trying her best to avoid Santana for a while; their lives have been intertwined for so long, she honestly didn’t know where to start cutting strings. Lockers next to each other. Seated together in classes. No more Cheerios practice, at least—which meant no more Cheerio showers—but always Glee. It’s not easy, writing someone out of your life when they have always been there, and it didn’t take Brittany long at all to find she hated it. She couldn’t stand not talking to Santana, or laughing with her, or grabbing her hand in the lunch line. She couldn’t _stand_ it.

And, apparently, Santana felt the same way, because the distance didn’t last more than a couple of weeks. Suddenly, they were shoulder to shoulder again in the halls. Texting between classes, and then after school, and then back on their regular schedule of _always_. It was easy to fall back into step with Santana, no matter how sad it made her when she remembered that she had _Artie_ now—sweet, well-meaning Artie, who kind of sucks at being a boyfriend sometimes, but at least is decent enough to _try_ —and before she knew it, they were back. Not perfect, not the way it used to be, but near enough to be dangerous.

Near enough to force her mouth open to ask Santana to talk about her feelings for once, and that was the turning point. She’d never expected in a million years for Santana to agree, because Santana never has before, but all of a sudden, they were talking to Ms. Holliday. And they were _singing_. And Santana was standing there before her, face open, eyes glistening, using words like _love_ and _want_ and _please_ , and Brittany couldn’t help but wonder who this strange, lovely girl even _was_ , because she sure didn’t look anything like her best friend. Her mom says it sometimes takes the unexpected to make a change, and she guesses that must be so, because Santana’s different now. She’s still Santana—still scared, still angry—but she’s a Santana who seems willing to _fight_ now. _For Brittany._

And that was hard enough to figure out, this brave-but-not new Santana, even without Artie rolling up to the table. Hard enough without the sex, and the cheating that should have felt more wrong than it did, and then Karofsky got involved, and Brittany’s head is honestly still kind of spinning from the whole mess. From Santana sneaking right back into her shell moments after poking her head out, and from Artie calling her stupid, and from getting so caught up in her love for Santana that she actually cared more about the name-calling than about her boyfriend—sweet, well-meaning Artie—branding her a cheater.

She wonders when all this started, and if she’d ever be strong enough to go back in time and stop it _just_ as the ball began its trip down this strange, scary, never-ending mountain. Somehow, she doesn’t think she could.

Artie was sweet, but not enough, and now Brittany isn’t dating _anybody_ at all. And maybe that’s for the best, because Santana is still hiding—a different kind of hiding, the kind where she’s at least not hiding from Brittany anymore, but still hiding all the same—and Brittany can’t go back down that path again. She can’t find herself standing on that back porch anymore, kissing Santana’s cheek quick-so-no-one-sees and setting up shop in a lie until Friday rolls back around. She can’t _handle_ it anymore. Maybe that makes her weak, but somehow, she doesn’t think so. She thinks maybe Santana is the one with the weakness, and she totally believes it’s something her best friend can work through, but not…

Not like it was. They have to move forward, not back. It’s what her mom always says when a problem seems too big to handle by herself. Keep moving forward, and if it’s meant to be…

Brittany doesn’t know how much she buys _meant to be_. She’s getting a little sick of being told what’s going to happen in advance, actually, of people doing things that are _for the best_. It’s her turn to start choosing what’s _for the best_ now, her turn to take a step back and wait for things to finally work themselves out.

Because, see, she _wants_ to be with Santana. It was so hard, not falling into her arms after that song, after Santana was the one to scoop her up and mend her bruises in the Artie fallout. It was hard, and for a second, she almost lost the will to fight temptation, but then Santana blew her off, Santana sent that scared little text, Santana is still “dating” Karofsky, and…

She almost lost the will, but it's back now, full-force. Because Santana needs to figure something out before she can be with Brittany—really be with her—and Brittany knows that. It feels like something you know before you even realize you know it, like when someone makes you listen to a song whose title you never matched up with the lyrics until this very moment. It feels like certainty. Brittany is _certain_ that Santana needs to work herself up to needing more than just Brittany. This will never work if _all_ she needs is Brittany.

What she needs, Brittany thinks, trying her best to keep her eyes fixed on Mercedes as she belts out a song at practice, is to love _herself_ the way she loves Brittany. The way Brittany has always loved her. That needs to happen, and it needs to happen soon, because it just doesn’t work otherwise. Santana has loved her for a very long time, she believes, but…

Well. There’s a reason this has been so hard, and Santana loving her just isn’t it.

She needs Santana to trust that everything is going to be okay, that people are still going to love her when she comes out of that closet. She needs Santana to believe that Brittany isn’t the only thing worth admitting who she really is for. She needs everything Santana’s got, every last drop of love she can muster, but that’s never going to happen until Santana can leap up on that stage with the rest of them and dance her beautiful, strained heart out.

Santana is so sad right now, and so worried—worried in a way Brittany has never seen before over things like homework and being captain of the squad—and it could all be better if she would just _let go_. Just say out loud what Brittany has known her whole life.

It shouldn’t be this hard. It makes her _angry_ , that it’s this hard, that Santana is having this much trouble. Not angry at Santana, because it’s not her fault that this town sucks, that people are so mean and so hateful. She hates everyone in this school who has ever looked at Santana through slitted eyes, judging her, slapping a big bright sticker right on her forehead that says _Worthless_ or _Bitch_ or _Slut_. Like they know her. Like they have any right to her. If no one had ever said those things—if Finn had never glared his stupid meathead glare, if Rachel had never called her a stripper, if even the well-meaning people like Artie didn’t go around claiming she was such an awful person—maybe it wouldn’t be so crazy to believe Santana could actually show up for Fondue for Two and say _yes_ to Prom, _yes_ to being Brittany’s girl.

And yeah, it’s sort of Santana’s fault that people look at her that way, because Santana does things even Brittany can’t understand, but the way she sees it, the whole thing kind of makes a big, fucked-up circle. And the thing about circles is, they’re really, really hard to break through.

She doesn’t want Santana to be sad. It’s the last thing she’s ever wanted, and it’s why her hand rests on the back of this hard plastic chair even now, even when Santana’s refusing to look her in the eye. Her hand rests just behind Santana’s shoulder, her fingertips braced dangerously close to soft hair and a denim jacket, and Santana just keeps on staring dead ahead. Staring at Mercedes, her foot tapping out a beat too fast for the song. Her lip is between her teeth, and Brittany knows she’s making this harder, but she can’t help it. Pulling away would feel too much like leaving Santana alone, and she can’t do that any better than she can agree to dating in secret again, to pretending for the sake of this stupid town that she _doesn’t_ love Santana more than she’s ever loved anyone.

She can’t walk away, and she can’t pull Santana into her arms, and it leaves her in this gross middle ground that feels a little like quicksand. Like they’re wandering through those woods in that movie, with the Rodents of Unusual Size, and any minute now, flames are going to spurt up from the ground and engulf them both.

The thing is—the _problem_ is—Artie was easy, and sweet, and well-meaning, but it’s Santana she loves, and loving Santana is the least easy thing in the world. Santana is hard, and Brittany doesn’t know to handle it, sometimes. Ever since that confession at her locker, she hasn’t known _what_ to expect. The only thing she knows for sure is that she loves Santana, and that Santana loves her, but…

Love isn’t the question; she’s loved Santana her whole life, and she can’t imagine ever not. Which is something the rest of the world doesn’t seem to get, even Santana herself—that you could love someone with every last inch of your heart, and not be with them. That you could want someone so desperately, that you could feel it in your blood, in each strand of hair, the tips of your fingernails, the curve of your thighs, and still, _still_ not be with them. She watches them in Glee—Rachel shooting Finn that kicked-puppy stare, Tina and Mike wrapped around one another, Kurt staring mournfully down at his phone—and she knows they don’t get it. They can’t.

They call her stupid, but they can be the dumbest people she’s ever met.

They think they’re in love, but when it’s all over, they’re more interested in cheating on each other and singing angry songs in front of the whole room than in paying _attention_. They think they’re in love, but it only works for them when the sun is out, when they’ve got their tongues down each others’ throats. They’re in love the way she loves pizza: it tastes like the best food in the world when she hasn’t had a slice in weeks, but after a whole weekend of pepperoni and olives, she never wants to see a pie for the rest of her life.

They’re stupid, and they don’t get it, and it makes her sad to think that Santana doesn’t get it, either. Santana can only see what’s right in front of her face: the people who will make fun of her, the points she might lose with her parents, or on the Prom Queen ballot, the frustration at not having Brittany right _now_. Santana doesn’t get that Brittany is totally okay with waiting for her. Santana doesn’t get that there is _plenty of time_. She’s so busy trying to be who other people want that she just doesn’t realize—

Her fingertips accidentally slip, skimming the edge of Santana’s shoulder until she jumps, eyes flicking toward the ceiling. Brittany bites her lip and decides enough is enough; she’s come this far, and just because she isn’t _dating_ Santana just yet doesn’t mean she can’t stop acting like a freak and be normal around her. Her hand drops, trailing down Santana’s arm, into her lap, catching her fingers and binding them against Brittany’s as tightly as she dares.

She smiles, faint and cautious, and squeezes once. Santana, still staring at the ceiling, squeezes back and holds, foot tapping even harder against the tile. Santana doesn’t get it. Santana is too busy being scared, too busy fueling some teenage ideal of what high school _should_ be to realize what she has to do. Santana isn’t ready to put on that shirt, or to accept a dance invitation, or to stand proudly and _love_ herself.

She will be. Brittany has faith in that much. Maybe not in time for Prom, or before the summer comes, or as fast as Brittany would like, but she will. Santana, for all her weaknesses, all her terrors, is strong. Strong, and beautiful, and completely worthy of the love Brittany has been building since she can remember.

Nobody else gets the big picture thing, the reason Brittany is willing to sit here with her hand in Santana’s and just wait. Nobody else gets that high school _isn’t_ the endgame here. High school isn’t the Big Boss, the one at the end of one of Artie’s video games that—once beaten—gives way to credits and an extra-special cut scene. High school is just a _blink_ , nothing more. Knowing that is what keeps Brittany going when the tests seem to be written in another language, or when her attention swims and dips out the window in the middle of a lecture. High school doesn’t _matter_.

The rest of them, they’ll be goners when that final bell rings next year. They’ll try for a while, and then they’ll give up, because none of them understand _real_ love. None of them understand that _real love_ means waiting. It means standing with your head buried in your locker, shaking, until you’re fifteen minutes late for class, because you've just gotten everything you've ever wanted and you can't just _take_ it. It means being stood up by your best friend, and watching her lie through her teeth, and hurting for the both of you. Real love means taking her hand, and telling her you love her anyway, and giving her a chance to see how bright she really does glow—even without you kissing her good morning and saying so out loud.

Brittany is in love with Santana Lopez, and if that means waiting weeks, or months, or _years_ to catch her for good—she can handle that. She can handle anything, except Santana letting this stupid, mean little town tell her who she ought to be. If Santana can flip them all the finger, like Brittany knows she can, like Brittany has been waiting for all semester, then everything will finally fall into place.

Artie was sweet, and Artie was well-meaning, but Brittany could never have waited for Artie. He was never going to be her ever-after. She knew that right from the start.

You don’t fall in love with nice the way you fall in love with _Santana_.

And she will wait as long as she needs to, to finally get the girl right.  



	13. Nothing Ever Lasts Forever (But As Long As We’re Together…)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "They'll hate me."

Title: Nothing Ever Lasts Forever (But As Long As We’re Together…)  
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: Through 2x22.  
Summary: "They'll hate me."  
A/N: [Picture Show 13/14]- “Tell Me You Love Me”

  
_There’s a room where we can go  
Where nobody else will follow  
Put all of your trust in me  
And I will give you mine_

“What happens if something goes wrong?”

Startled, Brittany cranes sleepily to peer at Santana’s face in the dark. Her— _best friend? Girlfriend? Something in between_ —sounds hoarse, her voice crackling around the syllables like an old audio tape. Her body angled uncomfortably near the mattress edge, as though she has—in sleep or otherwise—unconsciously pulled as far from Brittany as she can manage without falling overboard.

“When?”

She can’t imagine anything else going wrong after the mess that was Nationals—stupid bumbling Finn shoving his stupid gross tongue down Rachel’s stupid gross throat right onstage; at times like that, Brittany almost wishes Sylvester had control of the New Directions, because _that_ shit wouldn’t have flown. Nationals was going to be their big, thrilling burst onto the New York scene, but everything kind of exploded in a fiery ball of _not happening_ , and now they’re facing down another year of crazytown.

Honestly, Brittany doesn’t really mind, because she loves hanging out with these people—even if it isn’t cool to say so.

Anyway, with Nationals out of the way and the summer getting on the road, she kind of figured everything would start settling into a calm place for a little while. It’s all about parties, and barbeques, and lots of naked Santana—who still isn’t out, but has stopped dolling up in front of the mirror entirely now, and who Brittany overheard speaking in hushed tones with Quinn and Tina about the whole thing last week by the pool. It’s not where it needs to be, but things are heading in that direction, and Santana even says Brittany has been smiling in her sleep again lately.

Santana, who would know, because Santana stays over almost every night. Which is the _best_.

“What’s going wrong?” she asks when Santana doesn’t answer, shifting awkwardly to pull her shoulders up around her ears instead. Brittany gives her a light shake, palm gliding across the expanse of trembling abs. “Hey.”

Santana’s back swells and relaxes against Brittany’s chest. “My parents,” she says stiffly, whispering like she’s afraid Brittany’s mom is waiting just outside the door, fully prepared to phone the Lopez household at a second’s notice. “What if I tell them, and it just all…falls apart, and—“

Brittany pushes her nose into the space just behind Santana’s ear. “It won’t.”

“But what if it _does_?” The pained note is explosive, pounding off strangely solid shadows and echoing back to them. Brittany’s arms tighten, one hand slipping between Santana’s breasts to hold against her heart.

“It won’t,” she says again, firmly. She gives another gentle jostle and tries for a joke. “They love me, you know. They’ll be totally stoked to have another daughter as hot as the first.”

Santana doesn’t even try to laugh. Her fists are balled up beneath her cheekbone, her hair all up in Brittany’s nose when she turns her head toward the pillow. “They’ll hate me.”

“They _won’t_ ,” Brittany tells her stubbornly. “They couldn’t.”

They both know she might be lying, which makes Brittany feel less like sleeping and more like crying. Mr. and Mrs. Lopez _are_ really great people—not as great as her own parents, maybe, but pretty awesome anyway—and she _wants_ to believe they won’t get all stupid just because their daughter tells them a secret, but…people are stupid. They say stupid things, make stupid mistakes. And the Lopez instinct has never exactly been toward the “think first, speak later” lesson her mom has spent years trying to drill into Brittany’s head.

With limited success, she admits, but at least _she_ has never tried to attack somebody in the school hallway. Santana—and she loves her, she really does—has to have gotten that insane habit from _somewhere_.

“Abuela will,” Santana murmurs, so softly Brittany has to strain to pick up on the words. She closes her eyes, pulling at Santana’s middle until her butt lands against Brittany’s curled body.

“They love you,” she says, because she can’t think of anything else. “They love you, and _I_ love you, and—“ She trails off, somehow unable to finish with, _It’s going to be okay_. So far, okay is what they’ve managed to come to, and it’s good enough for now, but it’s taken a really long time to get here. A really long time and a lot more secrecy; Santana’s parents haven’t seen any of the growth Brittany has witnessed, and they have absolutely no way of knowing the things Santana has always worked so hard to keep under wraps. Things like how Santana melts when Brittany cups her face between her hands. Things like how Santana’s mouth tights and relaxes again when she’s pressing her face against Brittany’s neck for comfort. Things like how Santana says _I love you_ with stronger conviction each day, and how Brittany can barely keep from squirming all over in excitement every single time.

Theirs is working up to being most beautiful love story Brittany’s ever heard, but Santana’s parents haven’t read a single chapter. Who knows how they could react, really, being as clueless as they are?

“I love you,” she says again, a bit helplessly, running her toes up the length of Santana’s calf. “I love you,” again, stroking thick black hair aside to press a heavy kiss against the back of Santana’s neck. “I love you,” as her palm spreads slowly up Santana’s stomach, feeling the thunder of each shiver as it rolls beneath fate lines and life lines, the map that has always led her right back to this place.

“I love you too,” Santana mumbles, and shuffles around to meet her, hands already stretching to grasp at her hips. “But what if they don’t? What if they kick me out?”

“Then you’ll live with me,” Brittany insists, knocking their foreheads together a bit too aggressively. Her vision sparkles for a moment, then dims again. “You’ll live with me, right here in this room, and I’ll bring you food and news of the outside world, and you can play chess with Tubbs every day. He’s getting really good.”

Santana’s mouth pulls in the slightest of smiles. “Why am I confined to the bedroom in this scenario?”

Brittany tries not to grin, feeling her way up the back of Santana’s sleep-shirt in the darkness. “I thought you liked my bedroom.”

On another night, Santana would laugh and suggestively wiggle her hips. Tonight, her eyebrows tug together a bit sadly and her smile wavers.

“It’s safe here,” she says, in a voice that sounds a lot more like a scared little girl than like Santana “Razorblades” Lopez. “Nobody bugs us here.”

Brittany can’t deny that; Santana’s room is great, with its bigger bed and the lock on its heavy door, but Brittany’s has always felt more like _home_. And, yeah, technically it _is_ her home—but she knows Santana can feel it, too. It’s why they’ve been sleeping here for weeks, instead of in that basement.

“What if they dump me?” Santana asks in that same broken little voice, and Brittany doesn’t think she’s looking for an answer this time. She can’t even be sure Santana’s still talking about her parents, really; it could be her grandmother she’s picturing, or their friends at school. Anyone at all. This is the kind of question that only gets asked in the dark, in the middle of the night, with someone’s arms circled protectively around you.

Funny; when they were kids, Santana always seemed to be her White Knight. Santana protected her from frogs, and storms, and not knowing better when it came to fearing other people’s judgment. And now, years later, it’s Brittany doing the holding, the protecting, and Santana is wound up against her chest, shaking like she might come apart.

It’s strange, but right, somehow. Santana has been needing to come apart for a very long time.

“I love you,” Brittany whispers into her ear, unbothered by the hair that finds its way into her mouth.

“You could leave, too,” Santana recognizes dully, even as her hands clutch at Brittany’s back. “You could go.”

“I wouldn’t,” Brittany swears. Santana makes a noise that might be a laugh or a sob, and she instinctively presses in closer, head turning with a soft little rustle against the pillows.

“We’re in _high school_ , Britt. Everything changes after high school. My brother’s girlfriend didn’t last two months when they left—“

Brittany has half a mind to tell Santana that her brother was a big stupid jerk who never knew what being in love felt like, but she’s pretty sure it won’t make Santana feel any better to hear it. She wants to say that _she’s_ in love, that it doesn’t matter that they’re in high school, because love—when it matters like theirs does—lasts. She wants to, but Santana’s shivering under all these blankets, and she knows it won’t do any good to make promises now. Santana doesn’t have it in her to believe in _forever_ just yet.

They’re getting there. It’s going to take time.

In the meanwhile, Brittany nudges at Santana’s chin until their eyes meet. “I love you,” she repeats.

“But what if you don’t?” Santana whispers.

_I can’t not_ , Brittany thinks, and shakes her head. “I’m here _now_ ,” she settles for insisting, and kisses her once, hard, to prove the point. “I’m here now, and I love you, and that’s what matters. Right?”

Santana doesn’t answer. Brittany kisses her again, longer this time, two fingers braced gently beneath her chin. Slowly, clumsily, Santana’s mouth moves in return, her fists clenched at the small of Brittany’s back like she’s forgotten how to let go.

“I love you,” Brittany murmurs, the words lost somewhere between their lips, and Santana gives a tiny, quiet moan of agreement. “I love you,” as she urges past Santana’s lips with a steady tongue, her fingers combing out the static in Santana’s hair. “I love you,” as her leg hooks around Santana’s hip and eases her in.

Words don’t work with Santana the way actions do; they never did when they were kids, and _definitely_ not since that time at their lockers, when Brittany’s words screamed _I love you_ and her actions insisted otherwise. Santana stopped believing in her then, just for a minute, and that’s been surprisingly hard to come back from. Harder than Brittany ever would have imagined.

Words don’t work, so it’s up to her hands, and her lips, and her body to make Santana really believe that this is the real deal. She thinks Santana knows it already, deep down, but Santana has never been good at accepting what she already knows. She needs proof. She needs _convincing_.

It won’t be the last time they move together like this, Brittany suspects, with Santana grasping desperately at her waist, burrowing as close as Brittany can allow. It won’t be the last time Santana yanks her shorts down and pushes the shirt out of the way, scrambling to settle bare skin against bare skin with a contented little sigh. It won’t be the last time Santana rolls her onto her back and presses a thigh between her legs, raining kisses across her face until Brittany forgets to breathe around the foggy jumble that is _I love you_ and _I need you_ and _I’m never leaving you behind_.

This isn’t sex to get off, or even sex to feel close—it’s sex to keep Santana _believing_ that she is going to make it through this. The summer, and the school year after; the coming out at home, and at McKinley, and everything else that will follow. Santana still has so much to get through, with Brittany riding shotgun the whole way, and it’s going to take a lot of nights like this. When this room becomes the only place for them where everything is _okay_. When Santana kisses her hard with a muffled cry, her legs tensing as Brittany’s fingers find slick purchase. When Brittany can tell that _I love you_ just isn’t going to be convincing enough for what they need.

It’s going to take a lot of nights like this, with Santana bursting apart and coming back to earth with tears slinking down rosy cheeks, and Brittany wishes it wasn’t so complicated. She wishes that the world wasn’t so scary, that Santana wasn’t so certain of these upcoming losses. She wishes a kiss could break every evil spell in the book, as if this were a fairy tale and Santana was her beautiful cursed prince.

“I can live here?” Santana asks tiredly, face lost somewhere between Brittany’s breasts. “If they kick me out?”

Brittany slides a reassuring hand along her shoulder blades. “They won’t kick you out.”

“But if they do,” Santana presses, blowing a warm breath across Brittany’s skin. She shivers. “You’ll take me in?”

Smiling against the top of her head, Brittany nods. “Always.”

Santana makes a sound—not so broken as before, but not exactly happy, either—and turns her head to draw breath. “Good,” she says, her voice far away and sleepy now. “I could work with that.”

Brittany thinks, as she closes her own eyes and lets the padding of Santana’s heart lull her back to dreams, that _working with it_ might not make for such a bad summer. Not _perfect_ , maybe—but when are they ever that? It hasn’t been about perfect in a long time.

As far as she can tell, having Santana fall asleep in her arms, in a bed that might as well be _theirs_ , is pretty damn close to perfection, anyway. No matter what anyone outside that door thinks about it.  



	14. Time’s On Our Side (C’mon And Take Me For A Ride)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summer is keeping her sane, she believes, in a way she hadn't dared to expect.

Title: Time’s On Our Side (C’mon And Take Me For A Ride)  
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: Through 2x22.  
Summary: Summer is keeping her sane, she believes, in a way she hadn't dared to expect.  
A/N: [Picture Show 14/14]- "Take Me For A Ride"

  
_You’re always needing some direction  
Why all the rushing and the pushing, darling?  
Slow down a little, yeah, slow down a little_

The summer gives her something school can’t, and Santana has never been more grateful for it. Three months without classes, or homework, or pushing people aside on the staircase—it’s always been the best part of high school, but this time, it’s different. It’s less a thing of comfort and more a thing of _necessity_. Summer is keeping her sane, she believes, in a way she hadn’t dared to expect.

There are still some little things to concern herself with: things like parents who still don’t know why she doesn’t come home most nights (not that they ever ask; every summer thus far has been Brittany-centric anyway, so why should they worry?), or the neurosis about next year. Or the ever-present rule that stampedes through her head each time Abuela invites her for dinner.

_Girls don’t marry princesses, Santana_ —except that isn’t true anymore, she doesn’t _buy_ it anymore, and she’s not going to give in to it again. She hasn’t done much right with this whole thing, with Brittany, but she knows better than to let the oldest rule in the book run her life. Girls _do_ marry princesses, sometimes, and Santana’s going to be one of those girls. Someday.

Anybody who’s got something to say about that can just shove it up their bitter ass.

(Easy enough to say, easy enough to scoff in daylight, but when she’s perched on the edge of that ugly tulip-patterned couch, dutifully playing Wheel of Fortune along with the TV, it’s hard to imagine _ever_ saying those words out loud. Not to Abuela, who brandishes the carving knife at Pat Sajak and looks to Santana like she’s expecting her granddaughter to carry out a decades-old assassination attempt or something.)

The summer has its rough points, but for the most part, it’s not about the stress. For the most part, it’s waking up in Brittany’s arms, stumbling down the Pierce staircase—her parents _know_ , she’s sure, but they’ve been kind enough not to say anything so far—and starting her day with singed pancakes. It’s stretching out on lawn chairs left over from the 80s, her back scorching through and through as Brittany’s fingertips tickle along the underside of her arm. It’s strolling down the block to the local drugstore—the one that shouldn’t let them in wearing bikini tops and flip-flops, but does anyway because it actually seems to be bringing in _more_ customers—and coming away with ice cream sandwiches that melt down her wrist until Brittany’s tongue darts out to catch the sticky-sweet trail.

Summer is long days laying lazy in the grass and longer nights spent in Brittany’s bed, hips canting, breath catching as she rides on toward sunrise. And yeah, she’s still scared, and no, it doesn’t make the weight of everything that is _changing_ —spiraling fiercely out of control—any less crushing, but it’s a hell of a lot better than blushing under the appraising glare of the golf team after Trig.

That last semester, the one with all the pushing and pulling and running away, was marked by this sudden need to just be _done_ with the whole thing. To be out and hidden away at the same time, to have Brittany and protect them both with equal fervor. It was fast—maybe too fast—and it wasn’t working. Santana can see that. Nothing she’s done so far has really worked, from the digging her heels into soft earth, clutching the cape of Heteronormativity around her shoulders to the diving headfirst into Brittany and being _shocked_ when that only led to a brand new brick wall. Too fast, or too slow—she’s never been good at getting it right the first time around.

But the summer is better, she thinks, with Brittany’s arm positioned gently around her waist on the Pierce couch. With no parents, and a pudgy little sister squirreled away at summer camp, with bad Golden Girls reruns and the slim stroke of Brittany’s fingers just under the hem of her shirt, it doesn’t feel so much like an _inevitability_ , that things are going to go downhill someday. The fear stalls temporarily, blocked off by the zip of electricity that runs from the tips of Brittany’s fingers to the pit of Santana’s belly.

She becomes a steady fixture in the Pierce home, more so than ever before. She sprawls in the basement studio as Brittany dances furiously, all charged hips and mad flurry of blonde hair, while Santana attempts to breathe the air conditioning straight into her lungs. She fixes dinner with Mr. Pierce when Mrs. Pierce’s shift runs late, laughing when Brittany lobs a grape at the side of her head for no reason at all. She tucks Sarah into bed, Brittany’s arms warm around her shoulders, and promises that, yes, she will be there in the morning to play another vicious game of _Sorry!_

She pops home to collect fresh clothes, to shower, and to kiss her mother hello—and then she is out the door again, back to the break from life, back to putting everything she fears off for as long as she’s able.

After three weeks of this, they wind up at a pool party thrown by Mike Chang and his Fabulously Wealthy Asian Parents, surrounded by the idiots they’ve come to—sickeningly enough—love. Arms balanced against the pool’s edge, feet kicking lazily out in front of her, Santana watches the others splash and laugh. Puck bundles Rachel into his arms, bridal style, and pitches her without warning into the deep end; she comes up sputtering, hair flattened across her forehead like a St. Bernard. Santana snorts.

“Good look, Smurfette!”

Beside her, Brittany giggles and slips a hand around her waist. Her fingers pattern against Santana’s hipbone, tracing the edge of her bikini bottom with just enough innocence to keep Santana from swiveling on the spot and pinning her to the wall.

“This is fun,” Brittany whispers, almost conspiratorially, kissing Santana’s cheek. It is, she has to admit. There’s Kurt, squealing when Sam catches him around the waist and spins him around, right into the sprinkler; Tina, misjudging the arc of a frisbee and sending it careening into the side of Finn’s head; Quinn, good-naturedly shying away from Artie’s loaded water pistol, batting at him with her copy of _The Time Traveler’s Wife_. They’re all here, acting like they never suffered a crushing loss at Nationals, and like Finn and Rachel haven’t been disgustingly affectionate all over Facebook, and like Blaine—with his plaid swim trunks and surprisingly curly hair—actually fits with them.

Most importantly, none of them are stealing looks at Santana like they _know_ something, like they’re just _waiting_ for her to come out with it. They’re not bothering them at all, except when Mercedes does her best to snag Brittany around the middle and drag her underwater, or when Rachel bumbles over and belts the opening notes of “Boys of Summer” directly into Santana’s face.

There’s something so satisfying about planting a palm against the top of that stupid little hobbit head and dunking her for ten glorious seconds.

The point is, they’re not bothering them _because_ Santana is so blatantly in love with Brittany, or because of all the bullshit that’s happened this year; they’re bothering them because they’re a bunch of fucking morons, and that’s just what they _do_. And Santana kind of appreciates them for that, because this might well be the only group in the whole school who just _doesn’t give a shit_ about who she is or is not banging.

Hell, _she stole Artie’s girl_ , and still, he’s doggy-paddling with his Hulk-strong arms and thoroughly useless legs, spraying her with that stupid water gun and roaring with laughter when she slams a tidal wave back in response.

Brittany ducks down under the water and comes up between Santana’s legs, hoisting her onto strong shoulders, and it’s beautiful, because _no one_ cares. No one judges. All they want is to watch her grab for Quinn’s hands and push, swearing and laughing when Sam skids clumsily forward beneath her, nearly sends all four of them toppling. All they want is to pelt her with trash talk and water droplets, cackling when she steers Brittany to where Kurt is demurely trying to sun bathe near the ladder and prompts her to douse his whole damn towel with one mighty splash.

They don’t care who she is or isn’t pretending to be; they just want her _here_. Her _and_ Brittany. The two-shot that always has been.

By the time the sun is starting to sink below the horizon, the whole group of them is spread around a fire pit on the lawn: Puck and Artie sharping sticks with wholly-unnecessary zeal, Mercedes pitching marshmallows into Finn’s gaping mouth, Mike and Tina snuggling beneath a thin blanket. Santana leans back between Brittany’s legs, her back settled against a familiar chest, head arched back to count the sparse stars through the Chang yard’s trees.

“I love summer,” Brittany whispers into her hair, and kisses her. Brittany is always kissing her these days—after every private joke, each time her parents leave the room, when Santana is half-dozing as her shoulders begin to burn in the afternoon sun—and it makes Santana squirm pleasurably each time. Somehow all the more so, when she glances up to find Quinn and Rachel smiling at them like a couple of sincerely demented, yet proud, parents.

“Me too,” she agrees softly, catching hold of Brittany’s hands and playing with her fingers. Each one is long, pale, and lovely in a way Santana still feels lucky to be able to witness, much less hold. Everything about Brittany is beautiful like that, the way Santana never felt worthy of before recently. Still doesn’t, sometimes, but on a night like this one, with Sam lazily strumming his battered old acoustic and Rachel and Artie beginning a gentle harmony on “Seasons of Love,” it feels right. It feels good like she never thought she would again, that afternoon at Brittany’s locker. Good like she can’t remember on nights when she wakes up sweating and shivering, fresh dreams of her parents’ hatred ringing in her head.

She hums along with the song, tracing the grooves in Brittany’s palm with one chipped red nail, and lets her eyes swim around the circle. Kurt’s head rests against Blaine’s knee, his eyes closed, fingers twisting absently in light gray pants. Finn is stretched out, body running a mile wide, size 500 sneakers angled just a hair too near the bonfire. Puck has Artie’s glasses balanced precariously upon his mohawk and one arm around Mike’s shoulders, a bottle of stolen beer dangling from his free hand; Artie, for his part, keeps snapping his fingers just a second out of rhythm, grinning hazily. Rachel’s head bows against Quinn’s shoulder, surprisingly light, like she doesn’t dare let herself balance fully there; Quinn’s eyes are fixed on the ground, where she’s been drawing a face in a small patch of dirt, distant and careless. They’re all here, all happy and relaxed, and it isn’t the sort of comfort that ever lasts too long—not with a bunch of drama nerds like them—but for the moment, it’s nice to be a part of.

Nicer still, when Brittany inches forward just a bit and rests her chin upon Santana’s shoulder, mouth catching and vanishing from her neck without warning. She bends back and sighs.

“I want it to go on forever,” she admits. Brittany nuzzles the side of her throat, dragging her nose slowly up until she reaches the base of Santana’s ear. “Parties, and Puckerman being a drunk idiot, and Tina giving Finn new concussions every weekend. You. Living at your house. Not—“

She trails off uncertainly. Brittany’s hands skid across her belly, teasing the shirt up until a cool night breeze soothes the slight sunburn from earlier. “Not telling your grandma,” Brittany fills in for her after a second. Santana leans back just far enough to catch the glimmer of snapping flames reflected in clear blue eyes. She nods.

“Am I pussying out or what?”

Brittany holds on a little tighter, and Santana remembers all at once the events of last week—every week, since school let out—when they moved together beneath one thin sheet, Brittany exhaling _I love you_ like a song that never stops running. She shivers, heat catching between her legs, and smiles.

“You don’t think I’m a coward, do you?”

“I think,” Brittany tells her gently, circling one finger casually around her bellybutton, “there’s nothing wrong with going slow sometimes. Especially when you’re scared.”

A year ago, Santana would have bitten off that she was _not_ scared, that she didn’t _get_ scared, but it’d be pointless now. Brittany knows her better than anyone. Brittany has _always_ been about to read her fear, even when Santana was pretending not to feel it at all, to the point where even she could forget the shock of her own nightmares.

“Slow is good,” Brittany repeats, and trails parted lips back down Santana’s neck. Her shoulders tighten with the next shiver, her thighs pushing together instinctively. The idiots in New Directions are their friends, but even _they_ might have a problem if Santana were to turn now and sink into Brittany’s lap, tongue finding warm, inviting lips. She settles for shifting somewhat uncomfortably and closing her eyes, letting herself drift on the subtle motion of Brittany’s hips against her backside, Brittany’s hand holding hers without any clear desire to let go.

“You can live with me as long as you want,” Brittany adds huskily, and sucks at Santana’s pulse just hard enough to make her gasp. Mercedes shoots them both a suspicious little look, eyebrows knotted with a burst of _oh no, you are not_. Santana sticks out her tongue, feeling the curve of Brittany’s innocent smile against her skin.

“Forever would be a good start,” she murmurs when Mercedes’ attention returns to the sing-along on the opposite side of the fire. “You think your parents would be cool with that?”

“My parents love you,” Brittany reminds her, and squeezes her fingers in punctuation. “So does Sarah. And Tubbs, even though he’s always lying about it to look badass.”

Santana laughs. “Most badass fatass in the county, your cat.”

“I’ll let him know,” Brittany teases, clearly delighted that Santana even has this weird love for _Tubbs_ by this point—despite every occasion of being gawked at by creepy green eyes as her hips slid up and down against Brittany’s. It’s a stupid cat, but it’s _Brittany’s_ cat, and that makes him more or less all right.

Everything about Brittany is more or less all right.

She sinks back in Brittany’s arms and takes in a smooth, long breath, one that lifts her lungs in her chest and sparks a new rhythm to her heartbeat. It feels a little like starting over, like hitting the reset button a second before your car zigzags right off a steep cliff. Like everything that happened last year—the bad stuff, anyway, the fighting and the pushing and the stagnant taste of fear ringing coppery and mad in her mouth—doesn’t really matter anymore. Not with Rachel and Finn awkwardly performing a rendition of some old Backstreet Boys song across the way, Kurt and Artie providing improvisational shoulder-dancing for back-up, while Puck stretches his muscular body across the laps of _both_ halves of Asian Fusion. Not with Mike’s hand twisting through Tina’s hair, and Mercedes roasting a marshmallow that winds up both burned and handed off to Quinn, and Sam compulsively pointing out constellations at the behest of no one.

The old stuff doesn’t matter anymore, with Santana knowing better now—better than to play Mutual Beards with Karofsky, better than to make up lies and push Brittany away. Maybe it will again, someday, coming back to haunt her next year. Maybe she’ll make all kinds of mistakes when the time comes, and maybe it will hurt. Maybe she’ll even bring Brittany by Abuela’s next week, and _maybe_ , the sight of their hands locked so perfectly together will convince Abuela that, sometimes, _girls do marry princesses_. Maybe.

Right now, dragging Brittany’s knuckles across her lips, tasting sweat and sugar and the tang that has been Brittany for years, she doesn’t care to think about any of it. Happy moments don’t last forever. Enjoying this one while she’s got it is important. Maybe the most important thing since gazing into blue eyes and claiming, _I love you. Please say you love me back._

Brittany’s mouth is hot against her neck, her giggle seeping into Santana’s skin when a breeze whips long blonde hair around and around, curtaining them both. Brittany is beautiful, and wonderful, and innocent, and Brittany is _hers_.

As far as that’s concerned, Santana plans to spend the rest of the summer making up for lost time.  



End file.
